


the things we kept warm

by kenopsia (indie)



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: AU: people lay eggs, F/M, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Friends to Lovers, Gen, Kidfic, M/M, Mal and Dom live by working out their problems AU, accidental eggs, also now with art by kedgeree, healthy couple communication, mentions of prior child abuse, plentiful domestic resolution
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-17
Updated: 2017-03-01
Packaged: 2018-04-26 19:17:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 18
Words: 46,744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5017087
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/indie/pseuds/kenopsia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arthur has been with the Cobbs for years. He is either their nanny or the third parent. He's known Eames almost as long, and it's been a long time since antagonism and misunderstandings fell away, leaving other things behind: professional respect, physical attraction, and the knowledge that the other is a good man in a storm. </p><p>In light of this, when Arthur finds himself with an egg after a long, lazy weekend spent with Eames, he has a pretty abbreviated panic-cycle before he lands on: <i>I guess it's time to tell Eames,</i> and fetches himself a rental car.</p><p>NOW COMPLETE.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> [this beautiful art by kedgeree, y'all... is sooo great. I can't even.](http://kedgeree11.tumblr.com/post/157875492994/a-gift-art-for-the-amazing-katiewont)

Shortly before Arthur turned eighteen, he met a man named Dominic Cobb for breakfast. Arthur, trying to pull off twenty-two, at least, was drinking coffee black. At the end of the second cup, Dom had reached across the table and offered Arthur a job.  

Something changes in the next two years, but a lot stays the same.

By the time he’s thrown his lot in completely with Dominic Cobb, Arthur knows enough about dreamshare to know that what they do barely scratches the surface. There’s a whole world out there of specialized mindcrime, roles and structures and incumbent real-life crime to buttress the mental ones, but it’s easy to look at what he and his wife do and think of it as something different.

It helps that what the two of them — the three of them, later — do is wildly interesting, and Dom has a knack of picking up strangle pro bono work, will do a job for no money if it catches his eye, if he thinks it will stretch his understanding of the human brain. Even if they don’t get paid, they still put him up in a hotel room, or let him stay in theirs, and expense his meals, which is all he really wants anyway.

Once, early on, Dom takes a job without consulting with either of them and Arthur almost walks.

“He needs us,” Dom said.

“He’s a child,” Arthur had said, horrified. “He’s a child, with nightmares, Dom. Fuck. You’re going to teach his brain that nothing is private. He’s not going to know why, but he’s going to feel violated. It’s one thing to root around in an adult’s mind, but another—”

“No one here wants to traumatize him, A,” he’d said, stepping close. Too close. Arthur planted his elbow against Dom’s sternum. His voice went soft: “Not you, not me, not Mal. His mother thinks it’s something more. His mother doesn’t want him traumatized.”

Arthur’s skin felt too hot, too tight. “I just don’t want to go into some kid’s head.”

“Hey,” Dom said, which was noise but was not saying anything really, utter nonsense. “Hey.” Arthur hated himself for feeling marginally calmed, for dropping his arm to let Dom in even closer. Dom curled a hand behind his neck. Arthur has had friends, plenty in his youth and in his adolescence, but the thing about Dom is, he touches Arthur in a way that straight men haven’t since he came out in high school, like he trusts Arthur not to read too much into it.

They do it, they do the job, and Dom isn’t wrong, and Tony’s mother isn’t wrong, and Mal has a run in with a projection of Tony’s father, who is much, much bigger than he is in real life and she puts her fingernails against his neck. The last thing he sees before the time goes off is Mal, wiping her bloodied hands on the cotton of her long dress. Dom holds Tony against his chest. Arthur clenches and unclenches empty hands.

Somewhere in Arthur’s brain it gets wired in that when Dom’s voice goes soft and close, he’s probably right. It rarely leads him astray.

In another time, Dom Cobb would be a rebel leader, charismatic and handsome. He could convince Arthur to follow him into hell. Aware of this, instead of hating him, Arthur spends his time grateful that he rarely asks anything of Arthur that he isn’t willing to give.

Mal and Dom, married and in love and trying to hatch a baby, made room for him seamlessly. Something about it was humiliating, not because Dom or Mal ever made him feel that way, but as a natural overflow of his own gratitude when he thought about the room they kept for him in the LA house.

*

Looking back, coming out to Dom Cobb had probably been unnecessary. He’d taken him to get his first suit tailored, just the two of them. Dom was handsome, striking in even his casual attire, but in a well cut suit, Arthur found his mouth inexplicably dry on occasion.

Of course, he’d also been nineteen, so it wasn’t like it was difficult to turn him on, but still.

“I just need you to look four or five years older,” Dom had said, casual, and directed his man to navy and brown.

“And none of these,” Dom pressed a thumb to his left cheek.

“No amusement,” Arthur noted dryly, his heart thumping uneven in his chest. “Got it.”

After that it had seemed important to make sure he knew. His tongue had felt heavy, and he’d felt a curl of shame like he hadn’t in years, nervous like a swarm of bees in his blood, when he’d said, “I’m attracted to men.”

“Yes,” Dom had said.

“You. You know.”

“You met Mal’s brother,” Dom said, smiling ruefully. “You introduced yourself to him twice.”

Hot shame filled Arthur, enough to combat the euphoria that had come with his new suit, which fit him like a cliche.

“Aw,” Dom said, and hooked an elbow around Arthur’s neck. “Don’t feel bad. I tried to convince Anatole that he’d love being your boyfriend. If we hadn’t had to leave for the Stein job, I think I could have debated him gay in another three days.”

“You did not,” Arthur said, shoving.

“I did,” Dom laughed. “I told him you can grill an out of this world steak without looking. I was doing a hard sell.”

Arthur had been on the receiving end of Dom’s hard sell. It was quite a thing to witness the full force of his charisma, turning himself into a lever to use against the rest of the world. “In that case. I’m half surprised,” Arthur said, “that we aren’t brother in laws, now.”

“I know,” Dom said, laughing and mournful. “I tried so hard. He’s not just straight. He’s like. The high water mark of straightness.”

“I appreciate the gesture,” Arthur said, smiling around the lump in his throat.

*

When Arthur met Eames for the first time, it was in the middle of a job on the East Coast, and he was holding Phillipa. Phil was, at the time, far enough from hatching that Arthur was in near constant possession of her without the fear that she would hatch under his care.

“You must be Arthur,” he’d said, from the newly-opened door of their hotel room, and Arthur had been surprised, his attention jolted away from Phil’s gorgeous point. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you.”

“Yeah,” he said, moving her in her blanket wrap to his hip to free up a hand to shake. “You’re Eames?”

“The same,” he said, taking it and looking pointedly down at Arthur’s hip. “Congradulations.”

“Oh,” Arthur said, and felt himself flush, “she’s not.”

“I know,” Eames said, “I was only teasing. Mal told me she’d picked up a sitter.”

“That’s not my function,” Arthur bit out, his stomach dropping into his shoes. His humiliation was magnified by the fact that Eames was wildly attractive in an unattainable, older-man sort of way. Like a sexy english professor.

“Sorry,” Eames said, “I know that, too. The Cobbs speak highly of you. You’re much more useful to her than a sitter. You must know that.”

“Yes,” Arthur said. “People tend to make assumptions about me if she doesn’t beat them to it.”

Eames laughed, and Arthur got a good look at his crooked mouth. For some reason, it didn’t make Arthur find him less attractive. His insides gave a hot rustle, like he’d been teased by a summer breeze. “That certainly doesn’t help,” he said, gesturing towards Phil.

“Mal runs cold,” Arthur said. “I can’t let her egg catch a chill just because I’m worried people will take me for the au pair.”

“Good man,” Eames said, “very practical.”

“That’s what they call me,” Arthur said, shrugging.

“Anyways, Dom said you’re in charge of that first level. Can you take me down there?”

“Are you… trying to test me? Because this is the Cobb’s team. I don’t have anything to prove,” Arthur said, obviously uneasy but trying to sound firm.

“Of course you don’t,” Eames said, “I, on the other hand, have a lot of showing off to do. Mal said she thought perhaps you’d never actually seen anyone forge.”

“Mal does this thing where she dreams herself taller, if that counts.”

“Well then. How about you let me show you something.”

Arthur shifted Phillipa’s egg uneasily. “Mal and Dom are still out...”

As if summoned by Arthur’s disquiet, the handle of their room turned again.

“Darling,” she said from the door. Arthur turned towards her, and tilted so he could give her a piercing look that Eames was not privy to. “I brought bagels,” she said, instead of I’m sorry I let this stranger have our hotel room key, which is what Arthur immediately wanted from her.

“Bagels,” he repeated blandly.

“Yes,” she said, moving towards him with loping grace. “And I will trade you for my firstborn.”

*

What Eames can do in the dreamscape, it’s incredible. He changed his hair and Arthur almost wanted to reach out and touch it. He restrained himself, but Eames grinned like he knew.

“Mal only gains, like, half an inch,” Arthur said. “And I can’t change anything about myself. How are you...”

“A lifetime of self loathing, love,” Eames said, all easy manner and slick accent, chin sitting at an aloof angle, and then Eames’ face was gone, replaced by a strangers. “A knack for observation.”

“How long can you hold it? Are you having to think about all of the details?”

“Sometimes,” Eames allowed, flickering a poker chip between his fingers. “If there’s nothing inside to hold it together. If I was doing, say, a person I’d invented a face for, but nothing else, I’m thinking about his ears and his nose.”

“And if it were someone else, someone you knew?”

“Oh, that’s easy. Maybe too easy. I could slip into Mal and just be her, you know, spend all of my time thinking about The Lady of Shallot and Dominic Cobb and wearing evening gowns when I’d rather be in cashmere sweaters, and just let the physicality hold itself together.”

“Really,” Arthur frowned, skeptical.

Eames leveled a look at him, still through a stranger’s face. “And might I introduce you to my darling cabbage Arthur, without whom my husband would be hopeless,” he said, in Mal’s voice, low and sweet, and Arthur’s jaw swung down as, between one blink and the next, Eames was gone and Mal stood before him.

That time Arthur couldn’t stop himself from touching him. He knew, of course, that it was Eames before him but it was different to see Mal and keep himself from touching — he was out of the habit. He curled his hand around the swing of her hair.

“She hasn’t had hair this long since I met her,” he said, wistful. “She keeps it short now.”

“Yes, but if I were to forge her, particularly forging her to herself, I think this is the length I’d use.”

“What does that mean?”

“There are ways you see yourself,” Eames said, his face his own. “If I showed you the real you, you might not recognize him.”

He didn’t explain right away, but his face changed again.

“That’s not right,” Arthur said, but almost immediately he caught his mistake, what had thrown him off. “Oh.”

“Dom said you were quick,” Eames said, and his face changed subtly again, and the part of his hair, the slant of his grin.

“That looks more like me,” Arthur said, recognizing his face more by its reflection.

“Most people,” Eames said, grinning, and it’s not quite Arthur’s smile, but coming from his own face is eerie enough, “they get startled by themselves. You have to give them a version of themselves they’re fond of. You play up things, you downplay things, you show people what they want to see. It’s the same when you forge other people.”

“Only show the mark what he wants to see?” Arthur guessed.

“Rule number one,” Eames confirmed, and Arthur watched himself touch his own nose.

*

“One last job before Phillipa is born,” Mal said, hand curling fondly around her egg.

“Aw, don’t be like that,” Dom teased. “We’ve got time for at least one more.”

“Absolutely not,” Arthur said, before he’d opening his eyes. He reached blindly in Mal’s direction. “And give me that, please.”

“Do not call my child a that, svp,” Mal said.

“You’re missing the bigger issue,” Arthur said, putting both hands on his knees and launching himself upwards. “Your husband thinks we have time for one more job.”

Mal shrugged both shoulders. “You know Dominic cannot be repressed,” she said, in a fond voice, and passed Phil to him. He adjusted her to the crook of his arm. “Although you’re welcome to try.”

“She moves around in there too much already. We’re not going to go under when Phil starts to hatch.”

“Perhaps you and Dominic,” Mal suggested, but Arthur cut her off.

“Perhaps this conversation can wait,” Arthur said, looking sideways at Eames, still sprawled across the bed.

“Oh, Arthur. You worry too much. We’ve known him for years. Eames is not going to —”

“I worry the exact right amount,” Arthur said, laying one palm flat against the spotted-cream curve of Phillipa’s shell. He looked at Dom for assistance.

“That’s his job, Mal,” he said. Arthur always felt stupidly happy when Dom sided with him, such was the power of Dom’s approving eye. “For what it’s worth, though,” he directed at Arthur, “we’re very fond of Eames.”

“You don’t say,” said the man himself, his eyes fluttering open and going for his own wrist on instinct.

*

Eames is a bit of a berk. Arthur isn’t crazy about his braying laugh, and the sprawl of his body, which makes him think of the undisciplined teenage years. All he needs is an Xbox controller to complete the picture.

At one point during the job prep, Arthur comes back with lunch for the team in a paper bag, and walks in on Eames, who is absently watching security footage, dragging a thumb across his bottom lip, Phil balanced on his lap, wrapped in one of his tacky shirts. It makes Arthur completely, irrationally angry. “Trade me,” he said, in a voice that meant to be light but sank like a stone.

“Sure thing, love,” he said, one eyebrow raised.

Arthur especially hates the fact that Eames is emphatically not gay but uses his gorgeous face and lazy faux-attraction to get Arthur to do what he wants like he’s a lonely child, easily swayed by the promise of affection.

It especially makes him angry because before he’d met Dom, he had been. At that point of his life, he very well might have been swayed by the broad sweep of Eames’ cheekbones, or the way he brushes his knuckles across Phil, after Eames notices (and yes, that rankles under Arthur’s skin, too, all the damn noticing, nothing seems to escape him) that Arthur is quite keen on her safety. If he’d met Eames two years ago, Arthur recognizes that he’d have trailed after him like a puppy.

The knowledge of that fills him with shame, and makes him feel tense every time Eames drifts in and out of rooms Arthur is working on, for one innocuous reason or another.

*

“Is she to be a Phillip, on the off-chance?” Eames asks Mal over Thai.

“I doubt it,” Mal lilts, amused.

“Mother’s intuition?” Eames teases.

“Arthur’s, actually,” Dom says, nudging Arthur’s foot with his own.

Arthur has a boundless pile of files to go through, patents and legal paperwork, and no time for lunchtime chitchat. He moves his legs to the other side.

“So, no plan B?”

“Arthur’s candled her a dozen times,” Dom says, “and we don’t tend to doubt him. If she comes out a boy, Mal and I will both be floored.”

“I need one,” Eames cooes, condescending as hell, and Arthur has to bite the inside of his cheek when Mal stabs him in the hand with her fork.

“Keep your grubby paws off of my protege,” Mal demands cheerfully, and Arthur’s heart lurches at the implication. Eames doesn’t need an egg, he needs an Arthur.

“I could pay you so much better,” Eames whispers loudly. “And teach you so much.”

Arthur is thinking about what Eames said about forging when he says, “Sorry, I don’t think I can; I actually kind of like myself now.”

His response is drowned out by Mal, laughing loud enough to make Phil do little flips inside her egg.

 


	2. Chapter 2

The job goes well. It ends with Eames holding the blueprints of Volkswagen's newest fuel injector, standing wearing Niles Wellington’s chief engineer’s face.

“A little help here,” Eames had shouted, kicking a small, vicious looking man out the window. Arthur had his shoulder set against the door at the time: “I can’t cover your door and your window,” he snarled.

“I can!” Eames yelled. “Can you memorize these?”

*

It started with the four of them on the first level, in office building Mal designed, down to the faulty elevator and water stained ceiling tiles, buzzing fluorescent lights, before they spill out onto the streets of the city, the bare bones necessities of a township cleverly arranged in cul-de-sac loops.

In the middle, there was a lot of gunfire and Dom’s impromptu speech to the projections at large, gathered in the middle of town square, after a very attractive female projection in a crown had announced that they were about to hear a few words from the mayor and then a suspicious silence. Eames had shoved Dom forward during the ensuing silence, which had quickly turned restless.

Arthur, needless to say, runs his eyes over the mechanics of the schematics, filing them quickly, and earmarking the unique details. Eames leans against the door and snipes off every projection that climbs through the window. Arthur, as soon as he’s absorbed what he’s looking for, puts his gun in his mouth.

He wakes up on the first level and hits the timer on the PASIV. Dom has acquired a pair of scrubs, and is explaining to a small smattering of projections that the IV line is a morphine drip. Some of them are deaf, like the chief engineer’s wife, and Mal translates helpfully into sign language. He knows they see him wake, and keep talking, Dom as charming as he ever is, the very slide of his broad shoulders coaxing the projections (family, Arthur recognizes, with a few of the more distant relatives thrown in for good measure) while he gets Eames on his feet.

He points his gun at Eames. “Ready,” he asks, and Eames shoves at his wrists.

“I’m fine,” he says, forceful, and Arthur nods, shoots Mal and then Dom. The projections collectively lose their shit, turning to look at Arthur with mixed rage and horror. He puts his own gun in his mouth for the second time in as many minutes.

In the warehouse he lunges for paper as Mal leans over Niles, checking the sedative levels.

“Dom, Eames,” she says, preoccupied but delegating.

Arthur doesn’t have time to look up, sketching quickly, starting with the trickiest details and letting the rest flow out naturally from there. After he’s done with that, he’s still preoccupied, bundling up Phil from her makeshift incubator, a heating pad on a timer and tucking her under his shirt. He can feel her react to his movement, fluttering inside her shell. “Easy, killer,” he says.

When he is finally satisfied with both the details of their captured information and Phil’s safety, he finally looks up. Eames is coiling up the line of the PASIV, and Mal is injecting Niles with a clear vial before she pulls out his line, pressing a cotton ball to the hole she leaves behind.

In the following scuffle to leave, Eames doesn’t give Arthur any parting remarks.

Arthur forgets to ask until later, but back in LA he thinks about the fact that he woke up twice before Eames. Dom answers him after a long pause, looking thoughtful and lowering his voice as if to remind Arthur of discretion, even in their own home. “He doesn’t, as a rule, think that killing yourself to leave a dream level. It doesn’t usually set us back to let him wait out the timer.”

“Why?” Arthur wants to know.

Dom shrugs.

Arthur smacks Dom’s shoulder with his own. “Nobody knows other people like you,” Arthur scoffs. “You can’t tell me you’ve been in his head on enough jobs that you let him hold your egg and you don’t know why he can’t shoot himself in a dream.”

“A man deserves some privacy,” Dom said.

“That’s not what you said when you were breaking into the library in my head.”

Dom has the good grace to look a little chagrined, at least. “To be fair, that’s not usually the palace of secrets I look for in a subconscious.”

When Arthur had moved in with the Cobbs, he’d had a single backpack full of clothes and a duffel bag full of books. “You’re so full of shit,” he told Dom.

Dom cracks a grin. “Of course I knew, you little fucking nerd,” he says, and Arthur might have been stung by that, but his voice is full of affection. “I couldn’t resist though.”

*

Phil starts to hatch in Arthur’s care.

It’s a little early from her projected first crack. Of course, with as much time as Arthur spends in possession of her, it’s not like they hadn’t planned for it. Even when not doing mindcrime, both Dom and Mal have other jobs, and Arthur often has her for long hours.

“Hey Mal,” Arthur says, face flushing hot against the screen of his phone, pinned against his shoulder. “It’s, you know, time.”

He calls Dom next and he gets home first, crashing through the front door so fast it hangs open behind him. “Mal is on her way,” he says, knowing where Arthur will be and locating him without delay. He’s still unwinding his scarf from his neck, huffing a little, when he lands in the breakfast nook. It gets the best late-afternoon light, and if Arthur is home alone with Phillipa after three o’clock, that’s where they’re planted.

“Good,” Arthur says, moving to the edge of the room. “I’ll just be, you know, if you need anything...”

“Get back over here,” Dom says.

Arthur creeps back in, eyes glued to the trembling egg in the pillow nest on the tabletop. “This is it, Arthur,” Dom says, clasping his hand.

Arthur has been on high alert for an hour, and is starting to feel hot behind the eyes from the prolonged adrenaline. They’d had an egg fail to thrive before, once before Arthur had been in the picture and one after, and now they were finally going to have an infant in the house, and here Dom was, keeping him in the room like he wasn’t worried about Phillipa imprinting on him as well, like a damn third parent.

“Come on, little bit,” Dom was muttering in a low, consistent stream, “you’ve got this, just keep pecking.”

Mal comes in through the open door. Arthur jolts, his hand still cradled in Dom’s. He goes to extricate himself, expecting Mal to want to take his place, or maybe go to Dom’s other side, but instead she clasps his other hand. “I didn’t miss it,” she breathes.

“No,” Arthur says, and she nuzzles at his chin.

“Thank you for watching my baby,” she says, in a soft voice. Usually when she employs it, Arthur knows immediately that she wants something, but here she is, with conceivably everything she wants.

Phillipa’s egg finally gives way, falling around her, scrawny and pink and wet, with her little talons scrabbling on the table and they all let go of each other long enough to move in close, Arthur hovering behind he isn’t sure exactly what he’s supposed to do.

Mal scoops her up. “Hello beautiful,” she says, and turns around to steer her at Dom. “This is Papa. Look, darling, papa shaved off all of the hair on his face so you wouldn’t get scratched by his beardy face.”

Arthur is drinking them in with his eyes, when Dom speaks back, laughing, tears in his eyes. Arthur is moving his heels slowly backwards, trying to leave without disturbing them, his heart hammering with fresh adrenaline.

“And where do you think Arthur is going?” Mal cooes, still using her softest voice. “Silly Arthur. You’ll know him when he says something. Arthur is always talking at you. He worries you’ve been bored in there.”

“She probably has been,” Arthur says, with a clumsy tongue and his hand heavy when he lifts it in her direction.

She kicks out at the sound of his voice, and Arthur’s heart gives a hard swoop. “Luckily now you can find out first hand that neither of your parents are ever boring.”

Dom takes her from Mal to look at her tough little nails, which will fall out by this time tomorrow. He looks dazed. He’s going to make a great dad. Mal is getting out her camera, big and expensive enough that Arthur had been nervous the first time she’d asked him to pick it up, before he’d really had a payout with them. She collects a rapid dozen shots; later, she’ll be able to look through them like a flip book, baby passing from Dom’s arms to his own.

“There you are,” he tells her, stupidly, blindsided by her presence, somehow. She pokes her long talon at his face and he moves just enough to make sure it connects with his cheek instead of his eye.

*

Mal goes back to work first. They take a break from picking up jobs in the field for a while, although Cobb does leave Arthur and Mal for a weekend a few months after she hatches to do a spot of private security. “Take care of my favorite people,” Dom says, on the way out, pecking Mal on the cheek, ruffling Arthur’s hair and then leaning down to nose at the crown of the baby’s head.

“He could literally be talking to either of us,” Mal said, dryly.

“I was talking to both of you,” he said. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

The looks he gets around town are different when it’s just the two of them. Mal drags him along by the elbow while he holds Phillipa, and strangers coo at them.

“You’ll have one of your own eventually,” she said, giving his arm a reassuring squeeze.

“I don’t need one of my own,” Arthur said, looking down at the most charming little girl in the world.

“If you ever do, though. You know you can stay with us,” Mal said, and it hit Arthur like an arrow, surprising and sharp.

“I’m not— ” he spluttered, yelping a bit before he looked down at a sleeping Pip, and reigning himself in.

“I saw you candeling your egg the other day,” Mal said, kindly.

“I candle all of them,” he said, mortified to be having this conversation. “It doesn’t mean I’m. You know. Trying to start a family.”

Mal shushes him, steering him to their table. “I’m not,” he insists. Mal of course, tends to assume that she knows everything, which is hardly helped by the fact that she has a pretty unnerving knack for being right.

He doesn’t know how to explain, though. He’s not even sexually active, not really. He’s not sure why he’s so compelled to check before he disposes of his eggs, some shrill fire alarm of anxiety going off in his brain on days where he doesn’t, like he’s abandoned some vulnerable thing that needs him.

He knows it’s not logical, but you can’t always wrangle these things, so Arthur’s found that it’s easier just to accomidate.

*

By the time Phillipa is walking, (late, Dom likes to say, because Arthur never lets her chubby feet touch the ground, like he isn’t just as guilty) they’ve done a dozen more jobs. Sometimes Arthur stays out with her, because Mal is terrifyingly competent as an architect and if he makes everything seamless enough topside, they’re safe to do it without him. Sometimes they leave her with Mal’s parents.

He’s worked enough of them with Eames by then that he recognizes that he made a fundamental miscalculation about him, early on. To be clear, he is a bit of a berk, but he was probably a little more genuine in his attraction that Arthur had given him credit for.

Of course, Arthur had failed to realize this until a job where Eames had come to work with a hazy rash down the side of his neck.

“If you’re having an allergic reaction,” Arthur had frowned, craning his neck to give it a once over.

“Not to worry, sweetling,” Eames had said, and Cobb snickered into his own sleeve. Arthur threw a sharp look at him, and Eames went on, “I’ve got a proper boyfriend now.”

Arthur felt a little gobsmacked, but nodded. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to—”

“I know, Arthur. Worrying about the safety of the job is your forte. This time it just happens to be a bit of beardburn.” Eames, for his part, mostly looked amused, but Arthur had seen him facedown with a projection’s stiletto against his temple, bloodied but refusing to say uncle, so Arthur knew his ability to look calm under duress was top-notch.

Arthur learned one thing and then another about Eames in rapid succession. The job took three weeks, one of which had Arthur and Eames in close quarters as they alternately tailed the mark and held stakeouts across from his apartment. During that time, much of which had the two of them in a confined space, and during which time, Eames had flirted with him approximately zero times.

“Eames isn’t hitting on me,” he told Mal, just to see if she had any insider knowledge.

Mal laughed. “You and I both heard him, Arthur. He’s an honest man now.”

“An honest man,” Arthur scoffed.

“If you’re attracted to Eames, you probably should have made your move all those times he sat near you with that posture.” Mal does a thing with her shoulders that, strangely, does kind of remind him of the way Eames sits.

“I’m not attracted to Eames,” Arthur says, and gives Mal a little shove at the shoulder when she scoffs. “No, yeah, his face, sure. He’s so hot. But like. What’s inside of him?”

“Arthur,” Mal says, brushing away the crumbs of her pastry. “You know that’s not true.”

*

Mal’s right, of course. She rarely isn’t.

The thing is, he’s happier to know it, to be wrong. It means that at one point, Eames had some measure of genuine attraction to him. On the other hand, he also knows that if some point in the distant future, anything ever develops between the two of them, Eames is capable of putting his flirtations on hold.

It feels a bit like a victory, some thrill of knowing he’s not ready to act on yet.

He spends much of the year with Phil on his hip, small and wriggling.

“I don’t even know why you make her wear shoes,” Dom mutters under his breath. “Her damn feet never touch the ground and she hates them.”

It’s true — Arthur has to put her shoes back on her tiny feet five or six times a day. “But they match her dress,” Arthur says in a low voice he uses when talking to her, holding one foot in his palm. Phillipa grins up at him, flyway curls light on the breeze.

Dom rolls his eyes. “No they don’t.”

Arthur frowns at him. “They’re not the same shade,” he says. “But as far as outfit coordination goes, they are definitely a complementing set.”

Dom is pushing an empty stroller (and why one of them always insists they bring it is honestly more than a little ridiculous) and he looks more than a little put-upon, tired but exhausted, and happy underneath all that. Mal nudges up against his side, wrapping her fingers around Dom’s wrist.

“Arthur darling, leave the poor dear alone,” Mal says.

Mal talks to Arthur the same way she talks to Dom, indulgent and teasing and more than a little sweet. Arthur holds Phillipa the same way Dom does, like he’s been in other people’s heads, held their most private thoughts in his hands, memorized million dollar secrets, dreamed up imaginary infrastructure, anything he wants — and somehow she’s still the most precious thing he’s ever touched.

Arthur grew up below the poverty line, and convinced he was unlikable. He’d never thought forward to imagine a future where he had two best friends, much less one where the three of them would be co-criminals in something as spectacular as mind-based crime, where you can do anything, be anything.

Somehow, on top of that, they’re a family. A family of criminals and saturday morning markets and Arthur as the only one who can manage to keep track of both baby shoes by the end of the day.

It feels something like a miracle: he has everything he wants.

*

By the time Mal and Dom are trying to hatch another baby, Eames is single again and Arthur has had enough time, enough jobs, enough exposure to realize that he’s got more substance to him than he makes out.

Arthur likes the way he never seems tense but somehow he’s always wary of potential threats. Arthur’s not crazy about the way he likes to call him out over his mistakes in front of the whole team, but he appreciates the fact that Eames’ steel trap of a mind finds any holes in his thinking, unerringly.

Eames downplays nearly everything important, but amps up the drama for his own minor injuries and his flippant _laissez faire_ attitude, and you’d never know it until the plan goes to shit and you find out that beneath his affected apathy, he’s already thought of a backup plan in the time it’s taken you to brush off the gravel.

Eames actually calls him to work as an architect for him. “Just in time for Christmas,” he says into the phone, sounding jovial. It used to get under Arthur's skin, but now that he knows, really knows, that he doesn't have to worry about Eames agreeing to shoddily planned jobs for a quick paycheck, Arthur doesn't have to demand to see all of the groundwork. 

“Alright,” he says, writing it down on the Cobb's fridge calendar, and feeling himself smile a bit. “White Christmas it is.”

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so I had hoped to handwave biology for as long as possible here, but I'm going to level with you. Now is probably the time where if you're interested, I should let you know the way I picture biology here. For reasons that don't exactly make developmental biology sense, any combination of people can procreate, because everyone makes both biologically expensive ("eggs") and biologically cheap ("sperm") gametes. Eggs pretty much happen monthly for everyone, unless you're on some sort of birth control, which keeps you from being either genetic partner, so if you're going to pull the goalie, it's a toss-up about who might end up with the fetelized egg, because your penis can either make a deposit or an uptake, like a straw, of the partner's sex fluids. Lesbians in this universe have their own fluids to baste with, just need a transport, which I imagine are really, really east to purchase anywhere that sells fertility aids. 
> 
> Anyways, a person lays a jelly egg -- think ostrich, not baby human sized-- and the shell doesn't calcify until it hits the air, so that's not a massive trauma every month. It doesn't really matter who lays the egg because both parents (and strangers, and incubator beds) are technically capable of keeping them warm, but I imagine parental instinct is much stronger for pre-born little people in the egg-laying parent. 
> 
> Anyways, that's sort of the gist of that. Lemme know if you've got any other questions, and I will try to rickety-science answer them. (But mostly just pretend all of this reproductive nonsense makes sense.)

“Mal, what are you doing?”

“I'm making sure you pack the essentials, darling.” Mal says, elbow deep in his closet. Arthur’s first instinct is to shoo her out, but in fairness, she is holding one of his absolute favorite suits, deep forest green with lavender in the lining. It always makes him feel serious with an up-the-sleeve bit of secret whimsy, pun intended.

Arthur stops frowning at her long enough to take a look at the open suitcase where Pippa is sitting, his plumb colored tie wrapped loose around her shoulders like an open scarf. “Pip, you coming with me?” He asks, feeling the knot between his shoulders softening at her beautiful face.

“Sorry,” Mal says. “You know her royal highness is catching on to seeing one of us packing. I'm trying to make suitcases more fun and less traumatic.”

“Were you breaking out the hysterics for mama this morning?” Arthur said, using the end of his tie to tickle her face. It’s already wet and chewed on, probably a complete goner, and he writes it off with good grace.

“Yes,” Mal mutters, “Dom told her that only you were leaving. He thought that would be _comforting_.”

Phillipa isn't particularly vocal, but Arthur maintains that her receptive language is vast. At almost two years old, she’s obviously smart as hell. Arthur usually looks like a bit of a nut when the two of them are out because he constantly runs commentary. He fully expects her to graduate into fully formed opinions soon, and she’s definitely going to be the tot in preschool with the best grasp on international banking.

“Papa thinks you like him best,” Arthur says, swooping low enough to talk to the top of her head. “He forgets that you’re just like your mama.”

Mal laughs, tucking in his camel cashmere sweater behind Phil. “Are you insinuating that we both like you best, darling?”

“No,” Arthur says, lifting the baby out of his suitcase. “But you Cobb women are fickle. You never know who the favorite is going to be on any given day.”

*

It’s not often that Arthur’s the one that leaves the Cobbs. He checks himself of the ridiculous urge to leave Mal a To-Do list and emergency contacts.

He kisses Mal and Phil on the cheek on the way out, and Dom drives him to the airport.

“You know you can call me if you run into trouble,” Dom tells him, sliding down the 101.

Arthur rolls his eyes. “This isn’t the first job I’ve worked without you. Come off it.”

“I’m serious. When we hired you, we were in a tight spot. We thought you’d be with us for ten months, a year? Who knew you’d become part of the family?”

“Mal, I think,” Arthur mutters. “She was treating me like her oldest child pretty early.”

“Yes, but you know my wife knows everything. Which is why she’s not a valid answer to any version of a _who knew_ question.”

“Are you getting to something here?”

“Yes,” Dom says, and then falls silent for a long moment, signaling his intent to change lanes and then making a cautious move.

“You know I would never ask you,” he continues, slow, and and an alarm goes off in Arthur’s head. Because Dom knows he can ask him for anything, tends to treat Arthur like an extension of himself, not so much asking about anything as vocalizing his plan and then waiting for Arthur to fall in line.

What the _fuck_ can Dom Cobb be worried to ask him, Arthur thinks, nausea kicking in his stomach at whatever Dom’s cooked up that seems too awful to broach, but prepares himself to say yes anyway.

There is very little Arthur wouldn’t do for either Cobb.

*

The hotel is nice. Arthus is a little preoccupied when he gets there, because he’s still thinking about his talk with Dom, even after his long flight. He hasn’t really stopped since he stepped out of Dom’s car.

He’s barely settled in before Eames calls him. “Arthur,” he says, that accent transforming his name from something archaic into something interesting, as always.

Arthur is glad to hear from him, despite himself. “Eames,” Arthur acknowledges. “I’m just trying to grab a cab.”

He’s layered up against the cold — undershirt and button-up and a pullover under his peacoat — but he never wears gloves because he feels robbed of his dexterity in them.

“Don’t bother,” Eames says. “I’ve got one, and I’m headed your way.”

*

They make small talk in the cab, Arthur with his bare hands tucked under his thighs to warm and Eames body folded open, splayed thighs and an elbow over the middle seat. “How’s your little family?” Eames asks.

He’s teasing a little, but Arthur is pretty sure Eames does consider him a member of the Cobb family, so it pleases him all the same. “Lovely,” Arthur says, and then almost tells him about Dom, but Arthur’s hardly a gossip, and hasn’t had a chance to unpack it himself. And, he belatedly remembers, they’re hardly on that sort of confidence terms. Arthur just forgets when he sees him, sparkling in the cold.

Instead, he says, “And you look the part,” looking down at Eames’ watch — much more tactful, and tactfully expensive, than the clunky monster he usually wears, and then up, up Eames’ fitted shirt and braided scarf and shaved face. He looks closer to Arthur’s age like this, but just as unattainable. He looks like wool coats lined with antique money in a way Arthur never does, even tailored within an inch of his life.

That’s the difference between them. Arthur suspects he’s never going to stop looking hungry and scrappy no matter how much he tries with presentation, while Eames simply playacts at it.

“Thanks love,” Eames says, casually brushing at his sleeve as if it was a dusty old relic he’d pulled out of a second-hand shop. “You know I can’t resist a costume drama.”

*

By the time they arrive, they’re talking about the job. Their architect is a woman named Lucinda, whom Arthur has never met. “You’re going to like her,” Eames assures him. “She never smiles.”

Arthur’s mouth falls open. What the _fuck_.

“I’m not saying you don’t smile,” Eames says, amused. “I just know you like a level of one hundred and ten percent focus on a dangerous job and it’s hard to tell if someone’s focused when they’re, you know, smiling.”

“I’m not really sure what to say to that,” Arthur says.

Eames seems a little smug, like he knows something Arthur doesn’t. “Something will come to you,” he says, and looks expectantly outside of the window. “But maybe go ahead and consider tonight as pre-job.”

The cab rolls to a stop and Eames leans forward to pay the driver. Arthur slides out the other side and stares. “I thought we were going to do research,” he whispers, voice gone small out of surprise and awe, not out of any conscious effort to be quiet.

“We are,” Eames says, and pulls two slim pieces of cardstock from his inside breast pocket. He hands one to Arthur.

“Alexei Nabokov,” Arthur reads.

“Granted, it’ll be difficult to put that on your _First Fashion Show_ scrapbook page without your name, but I’ll print you a new one in the states.”

Arthur tucked his free hand into his pocket, already feeling the chill in the air creep into his coat and under the hem of his trousers. “Am I supposed to have an accent?” he boggles.

Eames shrugs, so fucking cavellier, because he’s good enough to pretend he doesn’t care, ever, that everything’s just a damn joke. Arthur hates and it and is filled with jealousy in equal measure. “I thought maybe you could know very little English.”

“Is that how you like your dates,” Arthur snipes, a little ruffled, “Underdressed and locked behind behind a language barrier?”

Eames waggles his eyebrows. “You’re neither of those things, Alexei,” he says, stepping in close to hover next to Arthur’s cheek. He says something else, low and rolling. Arthur doesn’t _speak_ Russian, so he doesn’t feel uniquely qualified to identify it as such, but he’s got a hunch. Unless Eames is bluffing.

Arthur reaches out to adjust Eames’ tie while he’s close enough. He grins a little wicked and says, mouth in an exaggerated pose, “Come on, Eames. Let’s go judge winter eveningwear.”

Eames’ face drains of all color. “That’s terrible,” he says. “Absolutely not. I revoke your fake name. You are clearly not built for the mother tongue.”

Arthur chirps out a single laugh, irrepressible, armed with the private knowledge that his real Russian accent is actually pretty seamless, and surprised at his own ability to knock Eames off his game sometimes, too.

“Come on,” he says, touching Eames’ wrist. They go inside.

*

It doesn’t take very long for Arthur to begin to suspect something. He hadn’t done any pre-job research. When Eames had called and outlined what he needed, he’d asked him to come, estimating that the job would span from mid November to late December. He’d asked for Arthur to be there with him, weeks before extraction and Arthur had pictured it, research and helping Eames do surveillance because sometimes that required public outings, which were always less conspicuous with a dining companion, and somewhere along the way, finding out if they were friends. (He’d like to be.)

Which is why Arthur doesn’t really sink his teeth into the details of the assignment until he gets his feet on the ground, at which point something starts to come together.

“Is this a real job?” he demands, on the second day.

Eames smirks at him. “Just because a job is right up your alley...”

“Did you _invent_ this job?” Arthur demands, cutting him off.

“Of course not. However, it is entirely possible that when the job came my way, and it happened to include one designer determined to steal the other designer’s ideas in time to hijack them them in time for the biggest New Year’s fashion show of the year, I told Lucinda I knew just the man for the job.”

“This seems,” Arthur says, gesturing at the paperwork.

“Easy. Easy is the word you’re looking for,” Eames supplies.

“There’s no such thing as an easy extraction,” Arthur huffs. “But yeah. There’s no challenge here.”

“Because we work in technology that a lot of people don’t know about. And because sometimes one bloke just needs to wreck another bloke’s fashion show.”

Arthur is still frowning.

“It’s not going to be that easy,” he says. “You’re just thinking it because you’ve got a special interest. If you had to research for all of the fabric-weight nonsense you already know about to start this job, you’d realize how much work you’ve already put into it.”

*

Eames is wrong: budding knowledge of tailoring or no, the job is dead easy, and he has to keep reminding himself to be serious the entire time, because he's enjoying himself immensely. It’s only the three of them, Arthur and Eames and Lucinda, the unsmiling architect, who builds them a stage and the designers own projections walk the runway with clockwork precision as Arthur sits in the audience and scans each one, committing them to memory.

The whole thing is… a lot of fun, actually. He’s been having the time of his life since Eames picked him up from his hotel, that first night.

He thinks about that after he delivers his drawings, capturing the essence of the season’s line, delivering them into Martin Fink’s hand.

Fink wastes no time with formalities, flicking through Arthur’s sketchbook briefly before closing it with a satisfied nod and turning his attention to Arthur. “I would put you on the runway,” he says, and Arthur grins reflexively.

“None of that,” Fink says. “You’re ruining your lines,” and Arthur realizes he’s talking about his dimples.  

“Sorry,” he says, still grinning. “It’s a nice offer, but I’ve got to get out of here. Call us if you ever need to do this again, it’s been a real pleasure.”

“Eames,” he says, from the cab. “Have you left town?”

*

“Mal.”

“Speaking, lovely,” she trills.

Arthur means to make quick, _quick_ small-talk, ask after her and Dom and Phillipa, in that order or a different one, but instead he panics and blurts: “There are some things in my bag.”

“Ye-es?” she drags.

“I need to know if you packed them.” Arthur is trying to keep his voice low, because he’s in a hotel bathroom, waiting for Eames’ knock. If they didn't come from Mal, that means they've been there since the last time he packed them which would have been, what, ages ago. Years, maybe. He certainly has no memory of them. 

“What sort of things, Arthur? I packed most of your bag but I assume you made some changes.” She pauses, thoughtfully, and he can hear Phil babbling in the background, half-english nonsense. “If you don’t remember packing something, it stands to reason that it was me.”

He has to make sure. “Condoms. In the side pocket of my duffel?”

“Non, darling. The thought did cross my mind,” she says, and Arthur can hear her mouth curling, “but I thought it would be a bit forward.”

“Let’s forget we ever had this conversation,” Arthur says.

“Dom and I will never mention it,” Mal promises.

“What!” Arthur yelps. “No, Mal, do _not_ mention it to Dom — ” he hears a scuffle at the door, and then the knob snapping open. “I have to go but please — put this conversation on hold.”

Arthur is desperate to get her to confirm before he hangs up. “Be careful,” is all she says, which isn’t enough, is hardly a commitment.

“I have to go,” he says again, half pleading.

“Phillipa sends her love,” Mal says.

“Tell her I’ll be home by New Year’s day,” he says, heart sinking in his chest.

When he goes back into his hotel room, Eames is sitting at his desk, making little doodles on the hotel stationery. “They didn’t leave you any pens,” Eames says, sounding a little offended.

Arthur keeps a rigid control over his face, sending out a fervent wish to the cosmos that Eames never finds out that he pilfers them immediately upon arrival and replacement as often as they reappear. It’s the same with travel soaps. Arthur regrets not making sure his duffel was carefully zipped and put away before he called Eames.

Arthur does his best to give a nonchalant shrug. “It happens,” he says, moving to look over Eames’ shoulder, where he’s drawn a small bird, one foot crooked up and its nose tucked beneath its beak —  a small work of art on a three-by-three inch complimentary hotel notepad.

“Fink was a little weirdly flattering.”

“Did he tell you you have the bone structure of a peregrine falcon?”

“What — no. But up until he accidentally saw my dimples he said he’d put me on the runway.”

“Fink’s an idiot,” Eames huffs, mouth tucked into a sardonic grin. “He had the right idea, but then he lost the thread. I should tell him, your face is a sodding _national treasure_.”

Eames is still in the sort of thing he’s been wearing the whole job, sandstone trousers and a sky blue sportcoat, and he hasn’t taken off his white sunglasses yet. He looks wildly expensive and casually careless, like a glossy sports car parked on the beach.

“Wait, did he tell _you_ that you have the bone structure of a peregrine falcon?”

Eames smiles at him. “I’ve heard all kinds of rubbish from people trying not to say, _you look wonky as fuck, mate_.”

“I’m very attracted to you,” Arthur blurts, like an idiot.

“Is that so,” Eames says, moving into his space. Arthur isn’t sure what’s going to happen next, doesn’t really want to let things escalate too much because all he’s got in his duffle bag is hotel lotion and some condoms that must have been there for ages, long expired by now. But he does know that it’s a few days until Christmas, and Eames is so stunningly handsome and it’s just been so fucking long since someone looked at him like that.

Arthur swallows the knot in his throat, moving into Eames’ space slowly enough that the other man can retreat if he doesn’t want him to be close. “Yeah.”

Eames’ posture unfolds to accommodate him, and Arthur closes the gap between them. 


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Where I am, it's still Christmas for another few minutes. Sorry this didn't go up this morning, guys. I tried so hard. XD It almsot didn't happen so I trimmed it down to just the smut.

Eames’ hands on his shoulders are a little rough, calloused palms catching on the soft fabric of his shirt. He doesn’t waste time, brushing his mouth over Arthur’s mouth only once before he delves in with real heat.

It's warm in their hotel room, especially since his blood is pumping now, hot and fast. Eames hand touches his face, and heat is blooming and blooming. He's dressed for the biting temperature outside.

Arthur wants to claw his own clothes off, but he spends enough time in Eames’ presence feeling young and a little desperate, and he feels like that would send then entirely wrong message. He thinks he can get away with unwinding his scarf, though, and he pulls it away from his neck.

Eames has two days worth of stubble growing, and when he scratches his chin across Arthur’s cheek, he makes a helpless noise. Eames laughs against him. “That’s it,” he says, a little coaxing.

Arthur does not need to be coaxed; Arthur is _ravenous._

Eames catches Arthur’s hands, which had been dangling. He moves one to his waist and holds the other one by the wrist. Eames has no trouble multitasking — while he does this, he pets Arthur’s smooth face with his own pleasantly scratchy one again, catches Arthur’s mouth, scraping his bottom lip with his teeth.

“You’re so,” Arthur says, feeling short of breath. Eames’ hand around his wrist is possibly the best thing that has ever happened to him. “So fucking hot.”

When Arthur says that, Eames’ hips surge forward, colliding clumsily with his own, and feeling the push of Eames’ cock, unyielding, is enough to make Arthur shudder heavy. “Language, Arthur,” Eames says, like he’s chiding him, but he’s shown his hand, voice thick with dizzy arousal.

Arthur grins, sharp, and leans down to set his teeth against Eames’ neck. “I just want you to wreck me,” Arthur says, blood singing at the realization that Eames wants him, _really_ wants him, as much as he does. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

Eames is all but grinding against him now, hips moving in steady, undulating waves, and Arthur’s cock has responded in kind, so hard that all Arthur can think of is the fit of Eames in his high fashion, the hard press of his thigh, and by the time Eames starts to ease him out of his button down, Arthur is half desperate, only managing to bite back the desire to say _please, please_ until he gets what he wants.

“Ah —” Arthur says, when he finds himself, somehow, supine on his back, down to his boxer-briefs. He’s embarrassed, suddenly, nervous for Eames’ reaction: “I only have, like, this one really old condom and I don’t really want to, you know.”

Eames is quiet for a minute, suspended above him, supporting himself on his own arms and Arthur can see the damp bulge of both enormous shoulders. Arthur’s mouth is dry just waiting. He had thought his pulse had reached its peak, but clearly there was room to improve. He feels it now, out of control.

“Alright,” Eames says, finally, and Arthur lets out a long breath.

“Can I suck you off, then?” Eames says, putting a hand on the cotton of his underpants, giving his cock a massage through the fabric, and Arthur helpfully lifts his hips. Eames laughs, and then puts him mouth on him with no preamble.

Arthur doesn’t know what to do with his hands, scrambling for purchase against expensive hotel sheets, and then clawing at his own hipbone, until Eames, gaze steady on him in a way that scoops out Arthur’s insides and redirects them in a warm rush into his chest. It is possibly Arthur’s favorite thing that has _ever_ happened to him.

Eames moves Arthur’s hands to his own head. Arthur doesn’t want to hurt him, cards his hands through his hair, mussing him irrevocably. Eames scratches his hipbone in a way he’d been doing himself a moment ago, and like almost everything, under someone else’s hand, it becomes something else entirely.

“Oh jeez,” Arthur wheezes, tapping urgently at the side of Eames’ face. “I don’t want you to, you’re going to get.”

Eames must know, but he keeps himself sealed to Arthur, one hand at his hip and the other palm flat against his drawn balls. “Oh God oh God,” Arthur chants, pressing the heel of his palms to his eyes as he feels stretched, like a rubber band just before it snaps, tense to the point of no return, flexed thighs and racing heart and sweat behind his neck, Eames’ hot slick mouth on him and Eames clawing at the hollow of his hipbone and it’s quite possible Arthur has _never_ gotten off so hard in his life.

“Nggh,” he says.

“Aw, darling,” Eames says, a little bit of saliva collected on the bottom on his lip. Arthur’s cock is wet and red and Eames stays in the vicinity long enough to give it a sweet, chaste kiss before he climbs back up, wiping his mouth with the back of his fingers.

Arthur knows that inside his brain he’s beginning to sound like a broken record, but _that._ That is his new favorite moment.

“I feel like.” Arthur fumbles.

There is a lull, Eames sweaty on top of him, idly nuzzling the side of his neck while he gets his bearings. He’s still hard as a rock against Arthur’s leg, which Arthur is going to get to shorty. “Yes,” Eames says, after a moment, smiling.

Arthur’s mouth and his thoughts both feel clumsy. “Sexual debt,” he says, finally. “I feel like I’ll be working it off forever.”

Eames nips at his neck. Arthur is pretty sure he’ll have to keep his scarf on for a week, no matter how warm the inside of buildings are. His neck has got to be a mess, but it feels so _fucking good_ he wouldn’t dream of shooing Eames away.

“You’ve got a few days,” he says, teasing. “And I’ve never seen you not rise to the occasion.”

Arthur wiggles out from beneath him, grinning crooked. “Well, Mr. Eames. I am certainly going to try.”

*

In the afterglow, Arthur notices something he hadn’t the night before. Arthur’s jacket, button up, waistcoat — they’re all hung up, pressed, his cufflinks in the coffee mug by the machine.

Arthur feels deliciously sore, thighs and calves well used, collarbone chewed. He feels stupidly happy. Eames, beside him, has his face pillowed on the palm of his hand, pillow lines still evident on his sleeping face.

Arthur wants to be home, that is, he wants to be back at Mal and Dom’s house, on Christmas day, because he has gifts for Phillipa he’d like to see opened with his own eyes, but he’s got a few days.

Arthur collects all of the well-respected bits of his own expensive clothing, noticing Eames’ own scattered across the floor with a grin. He does himself up from the floor to his scarf, putting it on last to save himself from overheating.

Outside, the world is glittering and gorgeous, thick, clean fresh snow coating the entire landscape, and Arthur requires his morning caffeine. And, he thinks, blushing to his ears, he doesn’t plan to get caught out again with one grimy condom the next time Eames hovers in his space. Arthur isn't perfect, but he rarely makes the same mistake twice.


	5. Chapter 5

Arthur climbs back into bed with a still sleeping Eames.

“Trousers,” Eames mumbles. Of all the objections Eames could make to Arthur’s continued presence in his bed, it is perhaps one of the least offensive. “Alright,” Arthur says, laying them out with care. Eames opens his arms to invite Arthur. Arthur loses his balance on his way down, lands too heavily on Eames.

“Oof,” Eames huffs.

Arthur squints down at him before deciding, “You’re okay.”

“In your professional opinion,” Eames says, eyes sliding shut, and Arthur wedges his legs between Eames’. When Eames wakes up he puts his sleep-clumsy hands up and down Arthur’s ribcage. He’s tickled to find that Arthur went out on an errand before the sun had settled above the horizon, looks into the paper bag and jeers, calls Arthur a _solid provider_ in one of his ridiculous accents and Arthur gives him a playful elbow before he asks him if he’d like to use one or two before he goes shopping because there’s no point in pulling off a fashion heist if he’s going to go home without buying himself some really top-shelf Christmas presents.

The whole trip is, on the whole, a fucking relief.

The thing is, Arthur has spent most of his adult life so far feeling out of place. He’d grown up poor, in a way that the word _poor_ doesn’t begin to cover, and then when he’d realized that he was at the very unexaggerated _end of his rope_ , there’d been an ad, and he’d put on his father’s suit, and somehow, somehow left that breakfast cafe with a new job, a new life. He hadn’t had to ask, he’d just become a part of the Cobb’s family, from the moment he first picked up an egg Mal was struggling to level out the temperature of without an incubator and shortly after that, following them into dream crime.

He’s twenty-four and this isn’t the first time he’s worked a job without Dom and Mal, but it’s the first time it felt like a glittering success, and it’s nice to be away from the gnawing hunger of being their third wheel — not that he wants either of them, but sometimes, he does think it would be nice to have something of his own.

Eames doesn’t feel like something of his own, but at least he has his full attention. Eames got called in for a job and thought of him, specifically, because he knew Arthur would have the time of his life. Eames took off Arthur’s layers and put them on hangers, and he doesn’t know if it’s pathetic to think that’s something singular in his romantic history. Perhaps it is, and Arthur has made it into a mountain, thinking of such a small thing as _generous_ and _thoughtful._

If he’s pathetic, just this once, he’ll allow it. He deserves it; he nestles in close and Eames, similarly, allows it.

*

Dom watches a lot of Lifetime Movies. He’s a walking encyclopedia of romantic tropes. He goes mush-brained over misunderstandings. Arthur doesn’t want any of those, because he’s an adult. He’s been an adult since he was fifteen.

“Everything about this week was really stellar,” Arthur says. It’s hard. It’s one thing to think _just be honest,_ but another when he’s standing here, trying to butter a bagel in Eames’ hotel room kitchen.  His mouth feels stuck.

Eames nods, taking the other half of Arthur’s bagel.

“Okay,” Arthur says shakily, a little adrift at Eames’ nonreaction.

“I agree,” Eames says, looking pleasant but casual. _Okay._

“So,” Arthur says, stomach trembling from nerves, “I just wanted to check before I left, you know, going back home, what it meant. Means.”

“How very thorough of you,” Eames says.

“That’s why I’m good at what I do,” Arthur says, crossing his arms, refusing to be teased.

Eames crowds him. “You’re delightful,” he says. He’s smiling but it looks a little careful to Arthur. “And the Cobbs are lucky to have you.”

“You know that I’m not dating them, right?” Arthur wants to know.

Eames huffs a laugh. “Yes, Arthur, I had an inkling when I lured you out here.”

“But you’re not trying to date,” Arthur says, still trying to clarify.

The mirth in Eames’ eyes lowers to a simmer. “Not as such, no,” he says. “Does that cause a problem for you?”

“I guess that depends. What do you want, exactly?”

“A friend who is very handsome,” Eames says, reaching out to fuss with his collar. Arthur suspects there had been nothing askance, but he tilts his head to allow it, “incredibly good at his job, and who I can rely on.”

“A partner,” Arthur guesses, wry. “A business-partner with benefits.”

“Not if that doesn’t feel like something worthwile to you,” Eames says, seeming unsure for the first time. “You’re very young. I’d thought that would mean you’d want the same, but maybe I had the wrong end of the stick. I don’t want to — damage you,” he says the word, a little wry, but not quite jesting.

“No,” Arthur says, equally disappointed and relieved in a way that confuses him. It feels good to have a label on it, and none of those labels are something that devalue Arthur. Attraction, professional respect, a measure of trust. “You’re not wrong. I’m really, really glad. There’s something, right now, that means I can’t really. I can’t think that way right now, but I like you a lot.”

“Perfect,” Eames says, like he means it.

Before he gets on his plane, Eames asks if he wants to take him to bed again, and Arthur does. His blood is singing, sizzling, and there’s something liberating: he’s not a stray, hoping to come in from the cold anymore — he’s an international criminal and he’s enjoying a getaway with a long-term friend who thinks he’s ace at his job, his body feeling boneless and well-cared for. Eames calls him a cab to take him to the airport, kisses him on the mouth, sweet melting into filthy before he pulls back.

“You handle a weapon in real life like you do when we’re under?” Eames wants to know.

“I’m not sure,” Arthur admits. “Dom took me down when we first started training. Like the scene in The Matrix.”

Eames pulls a face. “Well. Find out for me, and then decide if you’re interested in running cons topside.”

“Will do,” Arthur says, and Eames installs him into the sleek car, giving him a jovial shove. Arthur sinks against the car door, putting his hot cheek against the glass.

*

Not particularly intentionally, he keeps a secret. Christmas comes and goes with a heatwave in LA, and Mal points a dissapproving eye at Arthur when she helps the baby unwrap boxes of new dresses, before they embark on their unspoken agreement to keep Dom from ever knowing a ballpark figure of what Arthur might have spent on them.

They’ve done too much for Arthur, getting him a new watch and a tablet and new moleskeins, shirts Mal has obviously picked out and a replacement for the aftershave he’d had to leave when a job with Dom went fishy and they didn’t go back to the hotel, to be careful. “This is ridiculous,” he says, a little flushed.

Mal casts an amused eye at the mountain of presents from him, for the baby, mostly, but plenty of things for the two of them. “Oh,” she says, picking up a baby dress he picked up on the Fink job and cutting her eyes at Dom. “Is that so?”

“That’s different,” Arthur says. “I love her. And you guys have done so much for me the last few years.”

“It is exactly the same,” Mal says, palming his cheek.

*

It isn’t long after the Fink job before there is another egg in play. Round and with one pointy end, it never touches the incubator, between the three of them. Even Phillipa is a little interested in it, in the same way she’s starting to be interested in their phones — she recognizes it was something that grown ups pay attention to.

Arthur is reminded of a time several months ago where Arthur had heard the strains of Mal’s voice, piano-soft sounding like she’s comforting some sad thing, and Arthur had followed the sound of it to the nursery where Phillipa was playing happily on her stomach, gumming at a new toy.

“Ah, you’re fine,” Mal said, to the vaccum robot as it mades a sad dejected noise, pulling a wad of hair from it’s front grill.

“You need a baby,” Arthur had said, grinning. She’d been so gorgeous, hair getting long again. He doesn’t think she’s done more than trim it since Phil hatched.

“I know,” she said, petting the roomba sadly.

“Your existing baby is over there,” he said, indicating Phillipa with his toothbrush, still wearing an amused expression. He’d been teasing, mostly, but at the same time, he’d begun to suspect it for a while, that she wasn’t done.

“Oh, Arthur,” she’d said in that lilting voice that always let him know she was finding him a simpleton, “if Dom and I delay, poor Phillipa will be all alone, and too far apart from her sibling to enjoy it.”

*

Mal has trouble staying quiet in the dark. She can’t sit still, either. She’s been hovering since the egg calcified, early the morning before, buzzing with energy.

Behind Arthur, Dom shushes her and she gets quiet but she doesn’t stop shuffling. “Mal,” Dom barks in the dark. “We’re not at a second run movie theater.”

She falls still, and Arthur huffs out a laugh. Arthur holds his new candling light against the base of the egg. He makes a thoughtful noise, turning the egg to the side.

“Arthur darling,” Mal urges him.

“I’m seeing blood vessels,” Arthur assures her.

“And what about—”

“You cannot possibly be asking me about the gender on day two,” Arthur huffs.

“No, of course not,” she says. “But, darling, if you had to guess, perhaps?”

“You’re outrageous,” Arthur laughs. He presses the egg into her arms, a little more heft than Phillipa, but still small enough to hold in one hand, splayed fingers for stability. “Go huddle with Dom.”

*

Mal in a celebratory mood in an interesting creature. The first two eggs that had been laid after Arthur came to stay with them had not, ultimately, survived to hatching. She’s been convinced of this one being a sure thing.

She’s cooking near constantly, for a given value of cooking.

“My wife is so classy,” Dom tells him one morning.

Arthur rolls his eyes. “You know she just puts whipped cream on frozen waffles.” It’s not like he wants to change Dom’s perception of what a shining example of femininity Mal is, but someone has to remind him that her accident covers a multitude of sins.

“Hush,” Dom demands. By then, Arthur has told him his suspicion, that Dom will have a son in a few months, and that one’s easier to point out in a flickering outline, so they both see it when he shows them in the darkroom. Dom has dripped syrup on the egg and Arthur tries and fails to discreetely get it off before Mal notices.

Arthur sends Eames a cell phone picture of the egg with a pencil for scale. Eames sends a picture of himself in return, an over the top face, mouth open with faux excitement and a thumbs up. _Bastard,_ Arthur texts him back, amused.

 _Sorry luv,_ Eames sends quickly. _I meant congrats on small sprog + happy couple unless small sprog is urs._

 _Cobbs’, of course,_ Arthur taps out, tamping out a smile. _What does unless mean?_

_Then just congrats for 1 sprog, dumbass._

*

When James comes, something becomes very clear, very quickly.

James is a bit of an impossible baby. They love him tirelessly, but he’s got some relentless, souceless hysteria that they are constantly pushing back against. They were never so out of sleep when Pip was born. It worries Arthur, privately, because they’ve found that three is the perfect number of parents to be on the roster, especially because they’re all part-time criminals. One of them has always been able to stay out with Pip if they needed to, and to be honest, the thought has crossed Arthur’s mind that they could, if they needed to, and if it was going to be safe, bring well-natured Pippa with them. Lately, when James begins to wail, Arthur wants to wail with him. 

“You spoiled us, Pip,” Dom says mournfully from the breakfast table. Arthur has to rely on his ability to read lips over the wild animal shriek coming from James.

Pippa might also be developing the ability to read lips. In the four months since James arrived, they’ve had precious few moments of silence. He even makes noises in his sleep. Pippa calls him “baby loud” almost exclusively. Mal pretends that it’s just a telegraphic sentence, but Arthur knows that she’s bestowed a title upon him.

Arthur finds himself saying it when he scoops James up, “Come on, baby loud. Let’s go take a walk so papa can hear the news.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote you guys a long chapter because I left you hanging during rarepair winter. :) <3

The baby is crying. 

Later, the baby is screaming. 

Mal is occasionally crying because the baby is crying. Months pass like that. 

“James,” Dom pleads, pacing with him. “There’s nothing wrong. Papa is here, and mama is here. Look, Tata is here.”

He’s completely right. If there was something, something James was trying to draw attention to, something that any of them could fix. As far as his pediatrician could tell, he was just a panicked boy — there was no obvious source of relentless noise. Sometimes it wasn’t even so much a cry as it was persistent noise. 

*

Arthur does make time for some waking weapons training, though. He’d thought at first that Dom would be the natural choice, since the two of them had trained together in the dreamstate, but between the two of them, Mal is the one with impeccable aim. She is also the one who he can trust to be honest with him without thinking too much about his feelings, breezy and blunt in equal measure. They leave both children with Dom for the afternoon, Mal giving him a messy kiss before pecking both children on the forehead on their way out. 

“Be good, ducklings,” she tells them, tucking Philippa’s hair behind her ear. Dom already looks a little frazzled with one of them on each hip. 

At the range, people direct their questions at Arthur, and Arthur gets some sort of perverse glee out of shrugging and deferring to Mal. It gives her a similar glee. With a second child, even one who disrupts the silence of every room, she seems routinely exhausted but pleased. He’s glad they’ve taken the day off. It feels like it did in the early days, when the two of them often took off for the day to take Philippa out. 

“I didn’t feel very feminine when you came along,” she tells him, after they’re done and having lunch. They’d both worn earplugs, but Arthur’s head is still ringing, regardless. 

“What do you mean?”

“You came to raise my children,” she says, looking pensive. “You came along because I couldn’t keep an egg to hatching.”

“Yeah,” Arthur says, uncomfortable. “Not because there was something wrong with you.”

“Maybe,” she says. “Mostly I was so despondent than we had to bring in some stranger to help me. Not like a woman at all. How could I be a mother if I couldn’t get one to hatch?”

Arthur touches the wrinkle between her eyebrows and it softens beneath his hand. “That’s all wrong,” Arthur says. “You’re the best mother.” 

“You are very kind to say,” Mal says. “I did not know you would pick so many leaves from my artichoke heart. Otherwise I would never have thought those awful things about you.” 

“I don’t remember you being unpleasant when I moved in.”

“Arthur,” she says, smiling serenely. “You would not have seen it. I have much experience not letting boys know I find them distasteful.” 

“Well,” Arthur says, huffing a laugh. 

“Which brings us here, where I do not find you distasteful at all.”

“How gracious of you.”

*

“Pippa, will you sit with James please,” Arthur says, needing a minute to deal with the mess in the kitchen.

She lets out a little huff and toddles over to him.

The thing is, keeping James in eyeline helps with some of the noise. Arthur has taken to showering with him, as ridiculous as it sounds. He’s not collicky, he’s just equipped with formidable lungs. Arthur’s a criminally bent nanny, not an infant expert, so he’s doing what he can. 

Mal and Dom go back to work, and Arthur finds out that nothing makes James panic more than not being able to see their faces when he’d infrequently cross the room to fetch something or to check on Phillipa in their playroom. 

“Baby loud,” Arthur says, a little desperate, when the phone rings. It’s Eames calling, and when Arthur answers, he can hardly climb above James’ volume. “I’ll text you,” Arthur hollers. 

_ Sorry,  _ he says.  _ little guy is a siren.  _

_ Have ears. Available for a job?  _

Arthur frowns down at James, who is descending into shrieking insanity in his arms.  _ Not sure. I can’t even get a shower alone.  _

_ To b clear, sprog is cobb’s y/n? _

_ Of course he is,  _ Arthur sends off with an eyeroll, before turning to the infant in his arms. Poor Phillipa is wearing her noise cancelling headphones, colouring messily on the floor. “Jamie, Arthur can hear you, he just doesn’t know what you want.”

James’ existance has put the Cobb’s extracurricular careers into a temporary hiatus, between the sleeplessness they’re collectively experiencing and the fact that he’s such a high needs, demanding, loud baby. 

Mal comes home first, slipping off her shoes in the foyer before she locates them by sound. “My darlings,” she cooes, taking James from Arthur’s arms with a peck to his cheek. 

Arthur loves James and he loves Mal, so he manfully resists saying  _ Thank God. _

“I’m going to take Pippa for a walk,” he says, half miming because that’s the entirety of their lives now. 

He barely waits for her to nod before he scoops Pippa up into his arms, disentangling her from her headphones and crossing to the front door. 

“What a day,” he says into Philippa's hair. He relishes the sudden quiet, his ears ringing with aftershock, and the toddler sprawl of her. She's got just enough heft to her to be a grounding presence, not enough that he ever tires of carrying her, but she grows so fast, it’ll only be a matter of time.

Arthur never thought he'd be one of those people who count baby ages in months, saying things like  _ they grow up so fast _ , butbut nauseatingly enough, somehow he has become one. He’s cognizant of her and James' minute changes.

“Ta ta,” Pip says, which is more or less what she calls him, reaching for his face. 

“I know,” Arthur says, giving her fingers a quick nibble. “But I promise you’ll get along soon. He’ll be important to you later.”

Arthur is, of course, an only child but he suspects that James will come to mean at least as much to her as Dom does to him, when they get over this baby turbulence. When Pippa finally relaxes against him, head lolling against his shoulder, he calls up Eames. 

“Hallo,” Eames says, and as ever, he sounds effortlessly cool and a little preoccupied, even though he was the one who called Arthur just a few hours before. He sounds as if he had his sleeves rolled up to diffuse a bomb, his phone pinched between his ear and shoulder. 

“Sorry,” Arthur says. “I had to wait for Mal to get home to do the hand off.”

“It sounds like you’re a mite tied up over there,” Eames says.

Arthur bites back a groan. Although he’s done some distance research for Eames since the new year started, he hasn’t been able to take him up on either offer to pull off an actual job with him. “I am,” Arthur says. 

“But you remember how much fun we had on the last one,” Eames wheedles. He sounds friendly, but Arthur has always known that if you turn someone down three times, you aren’t likely to be invited out a fourth. This had caused him a lot of stress in high school, where saying  _ no  _ to invitations sprung most often from a monetary limitation. It makes him anxious now for the same reason, saying  _ no,  _ but not because he doesn’t want to be there. 

“I —” Arthur says. 

“Tell you what,” Eames says. “Transfer me to your supervisor and I’ll get him to approve for you some time off.”

“It’s not like that,” Arthur says. 

Arthur can almost  _ hear  _ Eames shrugging. “Sounds like it. Sounds like you’ve got a newly hatched baby, crying like a newly hatched baby, and you’re not leaving him with his two, very present, parents.”

Arthur’s will to argue evaporates like fog in the sun. The thing is, it doesn’t feel that way, but Eames isn’t wrong. 

Eames is silent on the other end, waiting for Arthur to say something. 

*

He doesn’t pick Arthur up from the airport, but he does send ten selfies of himself to Arthur’s phone while he’s in the air. They come with rapid-fire pings when he turns off airplane mode, along with a few other texts.  _ It’s like a whole room of modern art,  _ Arthur sends, tapping quickly and smiling to himself. And another, right on it’s heels:  _ I know someone must have scheduled this exhibit but mostly I’m going ???  _

Dom Cobb texts him:  _ What?  _

Hot shame floods Arthur.  _ I meant to text that to someone else,  _ he says.  _ Your text must have come when I was typing.  _

_ You’ve barely landed and you’re already flirting with Eames.  _ Cobb says. Arthur can hear his disapproval. Half of him wants to be petulant, and the other half wants to say  _ sorry.  _ He tabs out of the stream with Dom, pausing long enough that Dom will get a read reciept, and goes back to Eames, actually taking a minute to study the photos. 

Eames looks bulkier than the last job. Handsome. Clean shaven, even, which is a major plus. He’s got a button down with an open button low on his torso, and Arthur is both annoyed and fascinated with it. He zooms in on it, takes a screenshot and sends the image, one tiny piece of Eames’ stomach visible through his shirt, and sends it back, just to let him know he has his attention. 

Eames is working as an extractor for this job. He’s got someone else running cleanup, a weapons and tactical specialist named Grayson, because he expects violent subconscious security. It’s his job and he wants it kept small, to keep the risks low and the payout relatively high. Arthur hasn’t met Grayson before, but his background came up clean and he seems laid-back, sturdy, and Arthur feels safer to have him stationed nearby. 

He also has more than his fair share of input into Arthur’s architectural design. Arthur isn’t sure if he is offering advice from a legitimate place or if he just wants to stand behind Arthur, close enough that the heat coming from his broad chest lingers on Arthur’s back, making his stomach flip. 

The third time Eames comes by, he asks him if he’d ever actually  _ been  _ to the American midwest, in a tone that indicates that Arthur’s dream structure planning is lacking. The answer to that is that he  _ hasn’t,  _ but he isn’t sure how that relates to his topographical layout of  _ Brooklyn.  _

“Stop fucking with me,” Arthur grouses, elbowing him backwards without turning around. Dom keeps sending him sad faces like Arthur has personally wronged him instead of taking a second week off in five years. He turns his phone over. “Anyways, don’t you have a mark to figure out how to kidnap?”

Eames waves his hand dismissively over Arthur’s shoulder. “That’s the point of my mate Grayson here. Between you and I, I wasn’t sure if you were quite ready to graduate to that level of criminal activity.”

Arthur frowns. “Actually —” he says, and then stops, because he realizes suddenly that he was definitely about to get into some sort of criminal activity pissing contest. “Fair enough,” he says, and goes back to sketching. 

*

Eames isn’t wrong; after Arthur’s done as much as he can to tailor the dream while he waits for the courier to get him his photos, he does a little bit of investigation. Eames has reames on the finances and the mark’s business that he’s got spread out before him. When Arthur sits down next to him, Eames shoves some of them his way. 

“I can’t make heads or tails of this,” he tells him. “My eyes are starting to cross.”

“Let me take a look,” Arthur says, rolling his shoulders. It feels good to be out of the house, even though his back is cramped and his neck is starting to feel the pinched tension of being plugged into a job. 

“I mean, I can see where the money is going, on paper, but I’m not sure what I’m looking for, here.”

“You’re trying to get confirmation of subsecurity?” Arthur asks. 

“Not really,” Eames says. “I’m ready to be prepared for that either way.”

They’ve sent Grayson on a run for lunch, and he returns with paper bags that he drops on their table. “Go ahead,” Arthur says, finger keeping his place while he turns his had to yawn. “I’m onto something.”

Eames drops a sandwich at his elbow and leaves him to it. 

*

 

The job ends with Arthur in the driver’s seat of Eames’ rental car, Eames’ hand curled around his own pistol. Arthur hates I-95, but he keeps his hands steady on the wheel while Eames keeps a watchful eye on the mirrors. 

“Fuck,” he says. 

“I know,” Arthur says, smiling. 

Eames cuts his eyes over to him. “Look at you,” he says, voice curling, amused. 

Arthur hadn’t been sure until just that moment if Eames was still interested, still meant what he’d said before Christmas. There is no mistaking the shape of his indolent mouth, though. Between that and Eames’ grip on his weapon, Arthur is suddenly very, very keen. 

He’s breaking the speed limit in a nondescript car, not too much more than the Audi to their left. Grayson took a cab to the airport, Buenos Aires from there. Arthur and Eames had been ready to do the same, but then Arthur had began to suspect the mark’s  _ actual,  _ real life security on their tail and ended up in Eames’ car. 

“I think,” Arthur says. 

“Don’t say it. We’re not in an action movie.” 

“Alright,” Arthur says, easily, sliding from lane to lane. 

“Besides,” Eames says, “you can’t safely say it until we haven’t seen them in a hundred miles. Maybe two hundred miles.”

Arthur thumbs the trip odometer, zeroing out the numbers there. 

“While we wait,” he says, and Eames immediately looks lecherous. “No,” Arthur laughs, “I just wanted to know what happened when we split up.”

“Oh, you mean did I successfully join a mob of projections and implicate another projection as the dreamer?” Eames asks.

“I guess that’s my answer to that,” Arthur says. They slide quickly under a sign, letting them know they’re in a new city. The odometer is climbing, a few fractions of a single mile. “I think you’re the only person I know with the balls to find it plausible, in the heat of the moment.”

“Sometimes plans come in verb form. I don’t really think about it.”

“Your … verb first plans seem to pan out more often than not,” Arthur points out. Arthur prefers his plans to be more, well,  _ planned,  _ but there is a bit of an art to Eames, throwing himself bodily at a problem and hoping for the best. 

“You may have missed the point where the projections found me out and threw me in the brig,” Eames says, looking at him from beneath his eyebrows. 

Arthur barks out a laugh. “The dream did go off the rails for a bit at the end there.” 

There isn’t much else about the job that Arthur needs to talk to Eames about. He’d let him know before they were done that he was well pleased with Grayson, that he wouldn’t mind working with him again, and Eames had touched the side of his wrist, fleeting, leaving his skin briefly warmed but lacking after. “I’ve got a good eye for talent,” he’d said, and Arthur had snapped at him, because he was good at everything he put his shoulder against, and if he wasn’t, he worked his ass off to make progress anyway, and here Eames was, acting like all of his talents were horizontal.

Arthur keeps driving. “Find something for the radio,” he suggests. 

Eames has been content enough to sit in silence so far, intermittently chatting, but he methodically makes his way through the stations, stopping only for a few seconds before he moves on. 

Arthur is half-sure he is doing it just to be obnoxious, but then he does eventually find a radio station playing a  _ Foreigner  _ song that Eames clearly knows about eighty percent of the words to, and they stay on that station until they move out of its range.

*

The odometer turns over, and those last few fractions of the last few miles feel like they take the longest, so Arthur presses his food down another centimeter. He waits until  _ 199.6  _ to say it, just to beat Eames to the punch. “I think we lost them,” he smirks. 

Eames holds up a single finger for the next four tenths of a mile. “Yes,” he agrees, finally. “What shall we do to celebrate?”

This time, Arthur doesn’t have to make an awkward run for supplies. Eames tries to tease him about it, but then when Arthur starts to get pissed, he unzips his own toiletries bag to show him his own preparedness. 

“I wasn’t sure if you’d still want what you talked about before,” Arthur says, shirtless back against the hotel duvet. “Because I couldn’t make it onto those last two jobs.”

Eames shrugs. “I wasn’t too fussed. I know where your loyalties lie. And the other factors are still in play.”

Arthur knows what he’s talking about, but for some reason, he wants Eames to say it again. “Other factors,” he prods, hoping he sounds teasing instead of desperate. 

“Attraction, respect,” Eames says, listing dutifully. Things he told Arthur the first time he’d taken him to bed, when they’d done the runway job. “You’re a good man in a storm.”

Arthur really, really likes the sound of that. One day he’s going to trick Eames into saying it about him again. He’s at risk for forgetting about everything else right now, the rough callus of Eames’ palms just about eclipsing everything else, when something he’s said comes back to him like a boomerang. 

“Where my loyalties lie,” Arthur says. “You don’t think I’m loyal to you.”

“Well,” Eames says, unconcerned as he marches steadily forward, warm hand on Arthur’s skin. “I don’t think you’re likely to sell me up the river, dear. I just know you’re even  _ less likely  _ to sell Mal and Dom up the river.” 

Arthur stiffens. 

“Come off it,” Eames scoffs, his hands falling away. “You’re part of their little family.” 

Arthur feels strangely bereft, at once a little angry at Eames for indicating that he’s only got one slot on his loyalty list and at himself for being upset. And then Eames again, for seemingly losing interest in him, and then at himself again, for causing it. 

It runs a cyclical tumble in his stomach. He thinks about getting up, calling a cab, or even just getting his own room while he decides how to get back to California. Eames, who’s settled beside him, bare shoulder brushing his own, both looking up at the same textured ceiling. 

“I am part of the family. But you know if it came down to it,” Arthur says, worrying his bottom lip between his teeth. His heart rate is still thready, because minutes ago he’d been well on his way to having sex with Eames, and now all of that dead-end adrenaline is still coursing through him. “You’re also a priority for me.”

“I appreciate it,” Eames says, moving to press his elbow at Arthur’s side. “And I didn’t mean to get your back up. The Cobb’s are lucky to have you, but you can’t deny they’re your priority.”

Arthur is quiet, mulling it over. “Not forever,” he finally says, quiet. “They won’t need me too much longer, not the way it’s been the past few years.”

“You’re pretty attached to the problem child.”

“Of course I am. I love both of them.” The nice thing about lying side by side is that he can talk, and he knows Eames can hear him, but it’s easier somehow, like he’s not really talking  _ to  _ Eames at all. 

“Both?”

“All four of them,” Arthur corrects. “Just, the kids have a lot of my attention right now. But pretty soon, they’ll start phasing me out. I was thinking when James wasn’t so needy, you and I could work together more.”

“I used to have a dalmation,” Eames says, instead of responding to Arthur’s pretty sincere suggestion, and Arthur is so surprised by the subject change that his physically turns his head to look at him. Eames is a little pink from their drive, a fraction away from sunburned. “The thing about dalmatians is, after you yanks made the movie about them, you know, where the dalmation couple engage in unprotected sex, because the human people in their life don’t care about them...” 

Arthur snorts. “What the fuck, Eames.”

“ _ Anyways,  _ the point is, I used to have a dog I had to shower with.”

“I don’t follow.” 

“Because there was too much rapid, irresponsible breeding in America after the movie. A lot of them ended up with defects.” 

Arthur narrows his eyes. 

“Stop giving me the evil eye. I’m just making conversation, because my dog didn’t want me out of his sight, even to shower. I’m commiserating.”

“You’re such a conversationalist,” Arthur says, half confused and half amused that the circuitry in Eames’ brain allows him to jump from Arthur’s responsibility as the babysitter of a high-needs baby to his own clingy dog. Arthur climbs out of bed, reaching for his discarded t-shirt. 

“Where are you going?” Eames wants to know. 

“On a run,” Arthur says. “Do you want to come along?” 

“By all means, darling,” Eames says, waving a magnanimous hand at the doorway. 

Arthur takes the keys on his way out, to let Eames know he’d like him to stay put, give him an hour to recharge. Eames is intuitive. If he’s not here when Arthur gets back, it won’t be because he didn’t know. 

Arthur starts slow and lets his speed climb, his anxiety and stress falling away behind him. The air is sweet and moving, wind on his face and the damp of his shirt.  By the time he comes back, his calves are sore, but his thoughts are clear. 

The whole time he was running, he’d thought of Eames, who was, if nothing else, by all rights his friend. They had both changed since they’d met. Arthur had always assumed that at some point he’d stop feeling younger than Eames, caught up, but Eames seems to stay one step ahead. He likes working with him, and he likes being with him. Arthur rarely finds himself in a situation where he has to break a figurative sweat to keep up, but Eames always has him on his toes. 

When he flings open the door to their shared hotel room, he is ready to say his piece: “I’m sorry I’ve been unavailable after I said I wanted to partner with you —” he says, and trails off. 

“Sorry,” Eames says. 

“Oh — no, I’ll go,” Arthur splutters. He hadn’t expected to open the door to find an Eames with a hand on his cock, but somehow, here they were. 

Eames levels a look at Arthur. “Or you could get in here.” 

“Did you  _ purchase _ hotel pornography?”

“Don’t call it pornography, Arthur. It makes you sounds like a housewife from the seventies.”

Arthur raises an eyebrow. “Well, purchasing pornography in this day and age makes you  _ look  _ like a seventy year old man. Did you have to pop a viagra to get started?”

Eames is grinning. “Or you could leave,” he offers. At no point during this conversation has his hand left his cock. 

“I would hate to let your twenty two dollars go to waste,” Arthur returns, hand going for the doorknob behind him. 

“I did not spend fucking twenty two dollars on this,” Eames yelps, sounding offended. 

Once Arthur takes a quick, accidental look at Eames’ cock, he can’t seem to look away. It’s like a flytrap. “Yeah,” he says, “okay.”

*

In the cooling sweat, mind drifting pleasantly, Arthur bolts upright. “Your dog was deaf,” he says. 

“Yes,” Eames confirms, voice wary at Arthur’s sudden movement. 

“Motherfucker,” Arthur mutters on the exhale, jerking out of bed. He’s already reaching for his phone. “I didn't get to say, last night, because I got a little distracted by the fact that your cock was out, but I meant to tell you. I'm sorry about the last six months, but if you call again, I'll be there. Just let me know. I just — fuck, I've got to go.” 

He leans down and lays an impulsive kiss on Eames' mouth. Eames tilts his face up to receive it. 


	7. Chapter 7

The day they get a formal confirmation, Arthur calls Mal and Dom’s favorite restaurant. “Our baby is deaf and screams nonstop,” he explains, in his own no-nonsense way. Then he names the figure that they are willing to pay for a private room for an hour, and gets them a reservation.

*

Arthur isn't exactly sure what the protocol is in this situation. How do you respond when a man you sometimes have sex with casually diagnoses the baby in your life? A thank you text hardly seems appropriate. Knowing Eames as he does, he has the brief amusing thought that it might actually go over pretty damn well if he also includes a snapshot of his dick.

He takes a look at the card isle the next time he’s shopping with Pippa, just in case. As he suspected, they are all equally vapid or overwrought. Philippa wants to look at a card with a princess on it, the princess’ flowing dress is coated in a thick layer of glitter and Arthur resigns himself to both buying it and brushing shiny flecks from both of them all day.

Philippa is old enough to chat back with him in a limited way, and she tends to find him right, which Arthur loves. He’s been rambling at her since before he hatched, but now that she can agree with him, it’s pretty amazing.

“Tata was just being silly,” he tells her, eying the uninspired rack disdainfully.

“Tata is silly,” she agrees — seriously, it’s like magic — and gives his nose a honk.

Of course he is. He’s not going to fucking thank Eames from afar, like he was responding to a Christmas gift, he’s going to _go to him_ and he’s going to kiss the fuck out of him _._

*

It’s not like his position is cut and dried, and he gets paychecks every two weeks labeled _Childcare: 86 hours._ He had, that first year, but after the Cobbs had invited him into the world of dreamshare, the amount of money that comes in through their other activites means that it’s really a moot point.

Still, it’s just good manners to give Mal and Dom a little notice when he plans on taking off.

It’s different, this time. It feels different. Unlike the handful of other times he’s been with Eames, when he finds him, it isn’t on the fringes of a job, it’s just Arthur, knocking on Eames’ door. It’s just Eames, in paint-stained jeans worn below his underwear and a Henley.

“You’re wearing a henly,” Arthur says. Not only is Eames wearing a Henley, it’s completely filthy. Like, with actual dirt. He doesn’t point that out because Eames is in his own home, and Arthur is the one who knocked on his front door unannounced.

“Very observant,” Eames says. He steps back and gestures into the house with his beer. “Come on in, you’re just in time.”

Arthur follows Eames inside what appears to be a pretty standard house from the outside. Inside though, every surface seems to be in some stage of change.

“Just in time for what,” Arthur wants to know, gaping at the half-painted kitchen wall and the stacks of tile against the edges of the floor.

“To lend a hand,” Eames says. He squints at Arthur. “You might want to change into something more casual, though.”

Arthur had felt pretty casual when he left the house, in chinos and a button down rolled to the elbows, but he dutifully paws through the bag he has yet to sit down to look for the outfit he’d miss the least if he ends up in the same state as Eames. Since he’s come with a specific purpose in mind, he doesn’t really have anything unflattering or that he’s not fond of in his bag.

“No, no,” Eames says, leading him deeper into his house, to what appears to be his own bedroom. “No need to destroy any of your fancy shirts.”

Eames’ room feels undone in a distinctly different way than the rest of the house. There are sheets over canvases and reams and reams of inked paper on his desk, along with some kind of… _thing_ made out of ballpoint pens. Across Eames’ bed is a quilt that looks like it came from some’s gran, made with love and hundreds of man-hours, in shades of cream and navy. Arthur is aware that he’s openly staring. He’s a little floored. Part of him wants to touch Eames’ quilt.

“You can set down your bag,” Eames says, pawing through his closet, where he’s got a pretty intricately woven grid of open shelving. Eventually Eames finds something suitable and thrusts it at him.

“Thanks,” Arthur says, gaze flickering to the ensuite.

“It’s not like I haven’t seen you shirtless,” Eames says, but he gestures at the doorway anyways with a _go ahead_ motion.

Eames is right, though, and it’s not like he didn’t come here to throw himself at Eames’ feet. He locks eyes with Eames as he starts working his way down his buttons, six in a row. Eames doesn’t look away either. When he gets down the white cotton of his undershirt, he grabs the material at the back of his neck and pulls it up in front of him, and on the other side of the motion, Eames is still looking at him. Arthur loses himself for a moment, both of them looking, just looking, until Eames shakes himself. “Come on, we’re wasting daylight,” and Arthur scampers into the shirt.

There’s nothing to be done about his chinos, because there’s no universe where he fits into Eames’ jeans, but they’re hardly Arthur’s only pair.

*

Arthur follows Eames to his destination, which is the backyard. His sizable back yard. There is a gaping hole in the middle of it.

“What are you doing?”

“Renovating,” Eames grins at him. “What are you doing?”

“Well,” Arthur says, “I mostly came to say thank you.”

“What for?” Eames says, scratching his neck. “Never mind. Doesn’t matter. You can say it by taking over this hole.”

Arthur takes the shovel from Eames with good grace. “Alright.”

When Arthur is in Eames’ inexplicable backyard hole, and has taken enough stabs at the gnarly, root-filled dirt to get into the swing of things, Eames says, “While you’re down there,” and pauses to snicker, “you can tell me with words, too. Because I’m drawing a blank.”

“James,” Arthur says shortly. He’s starting to feel the burn in his body, but it feels good, and he’s already taken off his extremely nice shirt in exchange for a cotton tee that Eames probably stole from a thrift store.

“What about him?” Eames says, crouching next to Arthur’s hole to bring their faces level. He’s got two days of stubble on him and Arthur is very interested in it, suddenly.

He forces himself to look back at his task while he tells him, “You only diagnosed him and put a name to the continuous problem we’ve had for five months.” Eames frowns at him, his forehead bunched.

“He’s deaf. You were right.”

“No shit?” Eames says, rocking back on his heels as if he’s surprised.

“No shit,” Arthur confirms.

“I didn’t mean it like that, though. They just reminded me of each other.” Eames says. “I didn’t really mean to imply that the baby might be...”

He trails off, and Arthur can tell he’s serious. Even so, Arthur is always impressed by Eames. So he hadn’t consciously made the connection, that it was just the atmosphere of his brain making unlikely connections that even he wasn’t privy to — so much of his most impressive planning and quick-thinking happened beneath the surface, where Eames wasn’t even aware of it. He just knew he suddenly had a plan.

That, more than Eames’ gorgeous face and the considerable strength of Eames’ shapely muscles, really, really made Arthur hungry.

Which is when it hits Arthur that he is in too deep.

*

Between the two of them, by sundown, Eames is satisfied with the size of his future koi pond. They take turns showering and then Eames asks him if he wants to grab a bite to eat down the road. They take Eames’ car and go out for hibachi.

“What’s the deal with your house?” Arthur asks, when they finally get situated.

“To tell you the truth,” Eames says, leaning in conspiratorially and lowering his voice, “I’m really good at starting things, and not great at finishing them. I’ll probably lose interest in my koi pond after you leave.”

Something swoops in Arthur’s stomach. Arthur is goal oriented; Arthur thrives on marking things off on checklists. “Then,” he says carefully, “I should probably stay to make sure you see it through.”

Eames studies him for a moment, a slow smile unfurling. “Alright,” he says.

*

Back at Eames’ house, Arthur isn’t sure where to go.

Eames sets that to right by flicking on his massive TV, sitting on a half-varnished entertainment center. The screen lights up to the HGTV channel. Two sisters seems to be explaining how to make an efficient vegetable garden in the suburbs, in a hundred and twenty square feet. Eames is immediately interested.

“I had no idea you had such an interest in home renovations,” Arthur says, a little incredulous.

“We get a lot of downtime,” he says. “A man has to have hobbies.”

At some point during the episode, Arthur tucks himself against Eames’ side, incrementally. For some reason, it makes him feel timid. It’s one thing to have sex with someone who clearly wants to, but it feels sillier to gravitate towards someone to just be close with them. He’s not sure if Eames will allow it or put a friendly elbow against his neck.

Eames, it seems, is going to allow it. By the time Arthur feels like he knows the basics of vertical vegetable farming, a broad enough platform to springboard his own research, Eames puts his arm around him, and Arthur feels warmer than their shared body heat can allow for.

By the time the second program ends, Eames turns to Arthur and steaks a quick kiss from his mouth. “Yeah?” he says, just to check, before Arthur nods and pulls him back in. Soon, their plying, smacking kisses brings both of them to their sides on Eames' wide, deep couch. Eames' tastes are eclectic, and clearly include a ridiculous amount of half-assed DIY projects, but his taste in textiles is truly hedonistic. When Eames peels him out of his shirt, pausing briefly to touch his mouth to the skin above Arthur's waistband, in a kiss and then a suck and Arthur is shifting his hips up before he's aware of it. His shoulders slide against the plush suede of Eames' couch, all the more luxurious under his bared skin. 

No matter how much shifting Arthur does, Eames will not be rushed. Arthur's trousers come off in glacial increments, Eames' palms dragging them down and then coming back up to pet one of Arthur's nipples, or his ribcage, and then finally, they're on the floor, discarded with his shirt and Eames brushing his hand across Arthur's cock without taking off his underpants and Arthur makes a noise like a small tea kettle, not quite unbearably boiling, yet, but getting there. 

"What can I do for you, love?" Eames says. 

"Inside of me," Arthur pants, and for some reason his eyes are wet, "please."

Eames leaves to find a lubricant and a towel to put under him and comes back to find Arthur squirming with need.

He works inside of him, kneeling between Arthur's legs, his thighs hiked open. One, and two fingers, curling and soft inside of him, and everything blurs around the edges for Arthur. Eames keeps at it, gentle but relentless, and Arthur keeps expecting him to slick himself up and penetrate Arthur, but it never happens. Eames just keeps shushing him, leaning up to kiss his mouth while he keeps at it, fluttering around his prostate without banging on it and hardly touching his cock except for the occasional pass in tandem with the hand inside of him. 

Arthur nearly cries when he comes, all but untouched except for the way their stomachs pressed briefly against his cock when Eames crawled up to kiss him. 

"What the fuck," Arthur says, dazed and completely floored, "was that?"

"You worked hard today," Eames says, grinning. He looks smug as hell, which, Arthur will readily admit, he deserves. 

"Is that the going rate for a few hours of free labor?" Arthur asks, incredulous. 

Arthur doesn't let him answer, instead, launching up to kiss him again, working his hand between them to Eames' steel cock. It's neglected and hard enough to hammer nails. EVen completely sated, Arthur is completely enthralled by the sight of it. "Do you want to fuck me," Arthur asks, "or is there something else you want?"

Eames' eyes are dark, almost all pupil. "Would you mind? I know some guys don't want to, after they've come." 

Arthur lets himself fall backwards, thighs splaying again. He lets out a long, luxurious sigh and looks through his eyelashes at Eames, hoping he looks alluring and not ridiculous. "Please," he says, voice soft, and he doesn't have to tell Eames twice. 

*

Arthur stays to make sure the koi pond gets finished, measuring the shape of the hole and driving with Eames down to the hardware store to make sure they get the right sort of plastic and enough of it. He's been doing some research on his phone at night, body angled towards Eames so that the front of his screen would be out of his sight. About an hour into Eames' sleep, he starts to snore. If Arthur can't beat him to sleep, he might not get there at all, so he's had some free time. So the pond gets filled in, and they've put a bubbler in. 

After that, Arthur takes a look at Eames entertainment center. "We should finish this," he says. When it's done, Eames massages his back with something that makes him feel warm and tingly and then goes down on him while he goes from hard to spent and back to hard. Arthur is keen to return the favor, and then they fall asleep boneless, Eames dangling off the side of the bed. 

Ten days after Arthur knocked on Eames' door, Eames tries to conscript him into laying the kitchen tile. "You might as well, while you're here," he wheedles. 

Arthur laughs in his face. "I draw the line at tile laying. That is clearly not a renovation project best adapted to Pintrest."

Eames frowns. "I don't use Pintrest," he says, which is a fucking lie. Its not like he's all that savvy about his own firewalls. 

"Hire a professional for that one, Eames," Arthur says, light and fond. He's been with Eames long enough that he's done laundry and gone out on a quick jaunt to replace his favorite chinos, lost that first day to the pit of Eames' backyard. "But I'll come back when you're ready to get started on that gazebo."

*

Two days after Arthur gets back to the Cobb’s California home, Arthur spends an uncomfortable day with the heel of his hand lodged against his abdomen. It takes him a few hours to stob blaming his lunch and remember that he always feels discomfort when he’s about to pass an egg.

His schedule is a little off, he doesn’t think he should be up for another week or so, but his body is hardly clockwork. He's not worried. He never engages in unsafe behavior. It's going to be just a regular, if slightly off-schedule, empty ovulation. 

Unhurried, he lights a candle.


	8. A Brief Interlude Into Arthur's Thoughts

Shit. _Shit!_ Fuck. Motherfucking fuck. Shit. Wow. Fuck. Alright.


	9. Chapter 9

Arthur is immediately in flux. One steady thing: he is not going to be able to talk to Cobb until he knows exactly what he’s thinking, because if not, he’s going to subsume Cobb’s first impression into his own first impression. 

It is strange because he’s never not known what to feel in this situation: the last two times have been neat: joy and pride and second-hand thrill, and he’s got some of that, but wrapped up tightly with an immediate, painful fear. It cramps him, his throat is thick.

“Well aren’t you a surprise,” he chokes out, moving to palm the body-warm enamel of the shell. He can hear the scattered noises from down the hall, two babbling children and Dom singing while he makes breakfast for Pip, and it ratchets up his pulse a few notches. How long can he hide from Dom and Mal? They’re his friends — his family — but he just wants some time to think. 

If he can just think for a minute — James starts yelling down the hallway and it hits Arthur that he’s going to have to tell Eames. It’s not like there’s any ambiguity there. 

He’s still sitting in the dark, one candle with it’s minuscule flame quietly flickering along, illuminating the tiny cluster, one dark spot hanging low in the center of his egg. 

_ His egg _ , fuck. With  _ Eames.  _

*

It’s not like he can avoid it for long. He tucks it into his bed, just long enough to do let Dom hand him James and send him off.

“Pippa, can I tell you something?” he asks, in a conspiratorial whisper, three minutes after the house is completely Cobb adult free. “It’s a secret something.”

“Yes, yes!” Pippa at four years old does not get entrusted with a lot of classified information, but Arthur is going to be wearing his egg in a sling, the same sling he carried James in, but not the original he bought for Pippa, all day. 

He carries James on one hip and holds out a finger for Pippa to wrap her little hand around on his other side. He turns on his light and lets go of her to push back the duvet. 

“Uncle Tata!” Phillipa practically shrieks, and Arthur can see the immediate excitement in her eyes, and then the wheels turning as she cuts a look at James. “I  _ already  _ have a baby brother,” she says, nose creased the same way her mother’s does when confronted with wilted lettuce. 

“This wouldn’t be your brother,” he tells her. “This is my egg. You and the baby inside will be cousins.”

So Philipa is the first to know, looking dubiously at his egg while James drools onto his shirt. Of course, Phillipa is a small child, he’s hardly had an adequate warm-up for all the other shitty times he’ll have to break the news.

Regardless, he’s said it now; it’s practically true. 

*

Will Eames be angry? He’s seen Eames annoyed before, and Eames in mortal peril, but he imagines telling him and that seems the most likely. Perhaps Arthur should be angry at himself. He’s always been careful with his reproductive system, paranoid, even, but at some point during his self-indulgent week with Eames, something happened. 

He makes lunch for Philipa and warms up a bottle for James, with the egg in the sling. It is hard to situate James around it, but he does figure it out, moving the slin to one side so that the other arm is clear for James, and pulling his other arm up and out to go over the shell. 

Philipa is pretty interested in Arthur’s egg. When James quiets with a bottle in his mouth, she wants to know everything there is to know about it, like where it came from and where its other parent is and if Uncle Tata is married. He sidesteps most of her questions, except to tell her about the egg’s origin, which he answers with the nebulous “My tummy,” that he himself hated hearing as a child when he wanted to know. 

He spends a little while after lunch while he’s pacing with a yelling James on one side and his arm curled around his egg on the other thinking about how he can keep the Cobbs from coming home. 

Which is stupid. There is, of course, no non-suspicious way to indicate to parents that they shouldn’t come home straight from work, or at least until he has time to coax Pippa into bed. 

There will be no getting out of it tonight. 

He’s been on edge since before it was light outside, jerked awake by his own uncomfortable body at 4:13 and unable to sleep, and it seems he’s doomed to feel that way until, well. He’s not quite sure when the coiled tension behind his ribs will dissipate, but he figures telling Dom will be the beginning of the end. 

He feels a bit like a kid, slick with dread, waiting for him mom to come home and chew him out about his report card. There’d been more important things back then, or maybe there hadn’t been but somehow he’d felt sapped before school even entered into it. 

He puts on a movie for Pippa and settles in with James on the couch. 

He can’t stop thinking about Eames. 

He has a general knowledge about Dom’s reaction (that it is  _ generally  _ going to be a shitshow) and a specific knowledge of Mal’s, because she’s told him. 

Eames, though, he’s a wildcard. Incandescent fury? Apathy? Arthur has no idea. The fact that he has no idea makes him feel compelled to behave irrationally: half of him wants to do a much more thorough investigation on Eames than the perfunctory one he’d done after he’d met him. He wants to worm through his laughable internet security and worm through a decade of emails, he wants to discretely find out if he still have living parents. 

Arthur is still chewing this over with himself — do they, as hardened criminals still observe pleasantries like other people’s privacy, and besides being criminals, Eames is the father of his child, does  _ that  _ give Arthur the right to any pieces of him when Eames told him that he didn’t want to date. 

Setting aside all of the other things he has in various hands, Eames has been gracious with him. Honest. A good friend. Arthur owes it to him to stop letting himself get tied up in distractions and tell him. 

Arthur tries to take a few pictures of himself in an attempt at levity but he can’t seem to make any faces besides a few variations of extremely tense, so he gives that up. Instead, he sends him a text, pretty straightforward, asking him about what he’s got on the horizon. 

He considers, only briefly, Eames’ reaction if he just told him, right now. How do you even soften that blow?  _ Sorry you’re a dad, enclosed is a photo of my dick.  _

Phillipa wants to know what Arthur is laughing about. “You  _ never  _ think Meiko is funny,” she says, frowning. 

Arthur squints at the hummingbird onscreen. “His timing is better this time around.”

“It’s the  _ same  _ movie, Tata,” Phillipa tells him, exasperated. 

*

When Eames texts him back, it is to let him know:  _ got somth kinda cool. can’t cut you in / doing it free as a loss ldr, but if you want a front row seat, we’ll be acting out some writers book as writers block therapy.  _

And before he has a chance to respond, to comment on how he’s always doing something wildly interesting, Eames texts him again:  _ miss me already? only been 2 weeks. ;) _

*

By some miracle, both of the Cobbs  _ do  _ call ahead to let him know that they’ll be home late, but his miracle runs out of steam before he gets both of the kids in bed. In fact, when he hears Dom coming in through the front door, Arthur is standing in the door of the fridge, with Phillipa, wide eyed and inexplicably ravenous at eight. 

He swears under his breath, trying to angle his body away from. 

“Uh oh, Tata,” Pippa says. 

“I know,” Arthur says, anxiety spiking. “Tata said a bad word.”

“Is that true,” Dom asks, sounding amused. 

The last thing Arthur wants to do is turn around. 

“Tata said  _ shit! _ ” 

“You ma’am,” Arthur tells her, “are a tattle-tale.”

“That’s my girl,” Dom says, grinning. He drops his keys in the glass bowl in the corner of the kitchen, right under the meticulous calendar Arthur maintains so that he can keep track of the little family’s comings and goings. “Do you know what Tata’s upset about?”

“No,” Pippa says, and Arthur leans down to let her down. “It’s a secret,” she says, moving to him like a heat seeking missile. To be fair, he’s a little proud that the little traitor hadn’t sold him out immediately. 

“Thanks love,” he says, and lets the other shoe drop. 

*

Of all the things Arthur’s been chewing on all day, ways that he expected this to go, the reality is exponentially more painful. 

“Are you serious?” he asks, early on, because there is no way that Dom Cobb is actually lecturing him like he’s some kind of knocked-up teenager living under his roof. The only silver lining is that Dom waited until they got Phil down to sleep before he started on this idiotic tirade. 

“I just don’t understand what kind of irresponsible shit you’ve been doing, Arthur.” 

“I hardly think this is —” 

Dom silences him with a hand like an errant child. “That’s clearly the problem. You  _ didn’t think.  _ All that time Mal and I let you off because we thought you were taking jobs on you own, and turns out you were just answering some long-distance booty call.”

Arthur makes a surprised noise, his hand curling around his egg reflexively. “What — I have taken plenty of jobs alone.  _ And,  _ I’ve hardly been just your babysitter in a long time, Dom. I thought we were family.”

“Of course we are,” Dom huffs. “That’s why we’re going to fix this.”

Dread, thich as smoke, and just as damaging to his ability to breath, gives his chest a squeeze. “What?”

“Of course Mal and I will raise it.” Dom says, finally calming down. Arthur, in contrast, suddenly moves form  _ hurt  _ to  _ furious.  _

He leaps to his feet. “You’re being ridiculous,” he says. “I’m an adult. You can’t just make that decision for me. That’s my… That’s mine.” 

Dom has the audacity to roll his eyes at Arthur. Arthur has the brief, fleeting awareness that if he wasn’t holding his egg at that moment, he might have launched himself at him. “It’s not like you’re  _ with  _ Eames,” Dom says, because somehow on the way home from work, someone swapped him out with a patronizing motherfucker intent on stating the obvious. 

Arthur has had enough. 

“Where do you think you’re going?”

Arthur levels a look at him, anger blurring his vision. “Where the fuck do you think?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry guys, I never actually got happy with this chapter, but I really, really want to get Arthur to Eames, so. Needs must.


	10. Chapter 10

“Twenty five,” Arthur says, reeling. “In six months. Six  _ months _ .” 

The man behind the desk gives him a bland look. “But if you are not twenty five, now, sir…” 

“Can I buy one?” 

Now he's got the other man’s focus. The desk nameplate says Jeremiah McNabb, but when he’d tried to call him that shortly after he’d arrived, he hadn’t immediately turned his head, so Arthur’s on the fence about it. 

“Can you what?” Possibly-Jeremiah wants to know. 

Arthur turns it into a statement. “I'll buy it.” 

Arthur is very very aware that the effect of his usual surefootedness is lost here. Anywhere else and he can rely on his sharp presence to ease his way, stack a few years on top of where his baby face will get him. 

Now, in his casual clothes and with an egg in the crook of his elbow, he's working with a greater handicap than he's used to. In a suit, he’s positive that the individual manning the desk would have simply asked for a hefty deposit instead of telling him that he was very sorry, but there was nothing he could do for him as an individual under the age of twenty-five. 

“Sir, I am very sorry, but I can’t just  _ sell  _ you a rental car.”

“I don’t to  _ buy  _ a rental car,” Arthur reminds him, patience so worn thin he can see through it, “I wanted to _rent_ one. And you’re not being very helpful here.”

*

Eventually, Arthur gets what he wants. 

Of course, he doesn’t get it from the first dealership. He’d only given a few more minutes before he’d turned around and hailed another cab. It definitely wasn’t the sort of night where he had the patience to quibble or the emotional wherewithal to otherwise coerce him into giving in. 

The second rental place only wants a massive deposit, and Arthur is still on-edge enough from the previous place that he doesn’t bat an eye — sliding his credit card across the desk and shifting from foot to foot while Cheryl taps out his information with loud, clacking fingernails. She makes small talk while she helps him get sorted. 

“How lovely, just lovely,” she says, and he half-expected her voice to be grating before he realized he was making ugly assumptions because of her nails and her makeup and her gelled updo. It’s not. She sounds like someone he might drift off listening to. “When I laid my Ronald, everybody wanted to touch, and that always freaked me out.”

Obviously he hasn’t been carrying around this particular egg for long enough for that to have happened, but he’s familiar with the feeling. 

“With my first,” Arthur says, leaning against the counter. “I had to start carrying a bag before she was born with hand sanitizer.”

“That’s one way to do it,” Cheryl says, grinning up at him before looking back at her screen. “But I just got real mean.”

Arthur nods. “I was young with the first.”

“It gets easier to say  _ fuck off,  _ doesn’t it?”

“It really does,” Arthur says, smiling down at her. He gives his egg an absent rub, feeling a little bit of the tension ease for the first time in a day as she pushes her chair away from her desk with a flourish and moves to the printer behind her. 

“I’m really sorry about the deposit. It’s a real shame,” she says. He's about to wave her off, because honestly it's not a problem for him, and if he looks defeated, it's for other reasons, but she goes on ahead. “So I went ahead and comped you five days of heated car seat rental.”

“Bless you,” Arthur laughs. He hadn't even thought that far ahead yet. He makes a point of taking her card, letting her know that he’ll be calling corporate on her behalf. 

She waves him off, gaudy nails catching the fluorescent light. “It's hard to be alone with a little one. Can I ask where you're headed, at ten o'clock with the egg?”

Arthur hesitates. He can hear the underlying words she's not saying, asking him if he's okay. “We’re going to see the papa,” Arthur says carefully, which is probably the kindest way he can spin it. 

“Alright,” she says, looking meaningfully at her business card, still in his hand. Her demeanor conceptually brightens as she says, “hey, practice one good  _ fuck off  _ on me for the road. Pretend some park ranger wants to know if they can touch.” 

“Fuck off,” he tells her. She beams at him.

*

Making sure his egg fits snug in the seat makes him feel better. Letting the round cradle of it warm up and testing it with his hands, tugging on the base to make sure it stays put. It feels routine, practical. Nothing out of the ordinary. He’s done this before — he gives the top of the egg a gentle pat and climbing into the driver’s seat. 

“Too bad there’s no menswear open this late,” Arthur says, rueful, eyeing it in the rear view mirror. “I could kill for a collar right now.”

*

“Thirty five hundred miles, Eames,” Arthur mutters, tapping at the GPS, frowning. Of course he's no where convenient. 

It's too early for the baby to have any sort of hearing structures, but he tells it anyway: “Don't be mad, but. We could get there in a seven hour flight.”

He pauses, looking back the the navigation screen. 62 hours if the five is clear. Arthur snorts. “But you and I are going to go in a road trip instead.” 

*

By midnight, Mal is calling him off the hook. 

“I can't,” he says, with a wince. And sends her to voicemail.

The five is behaving, and he’s cutting through that San Diego to Los Angeles strip where the view is still lovely, one window cracked because of the occasional salty ocean breeze. “Once we get past LA,” he tells his passenger, “nothing is going to look interesting, and everything is going to smell like cow. Sorry.”

Of course, they pass LA at one in the morning, so that one’s more pressing to Arthur than the view. Arthur stops for a coffee and to stretch his legs, but he’s starting to feel an exhaustion that doesn’t shake with coffee. He knows he can probably make it to Bakersfield without falling asleep at the wheel, so that’s where he pulls off to settle into a hotel for the night. 

Checking in, no one mentions his egg or the fact that he doesn't have any luggage. He even acquires a toothbrush and toothpaste from the front desk. 

The relief he feels when he finally makes it into bed is unreal. He has so much to do in the morning, and he should probably set the hotel alarm clock because his phone is definitely going to be dead in the morning. 

He means to take a four hour power nap, four to eight or so, but instead he falls asleep with his egg tucked under his chin and doesn't wake up until eleven. 

*

Without his phone, Arthur makes do with a hotel notepad. 

  1. Charger, car port
  2. Call Mal
  3. Pick hotel to overnight passport to
  4. Pick up ~~an outfit~~ several outfits



He taps the end of his pen against the blunt curve of his egg. “What am I forgetting?”

*

It takes him another hour to get back checked out and back on the road. He stops to treat himself to lunch, and by the time he’s back on the freeway, it’s half past twelve. When his phone hits five percent, he picks it up without taking it off the charger. 

Mal picks up on the first ring, breathless. “Oh Arthur—” 

“Mal, I can’t right now.” It is quiet on the line, and he breathes a sigh of relief. “I love you. I love you both, but Dom was out of line.”

“I know, sweet. He was being ridiculous. But his heart was in the right place. Of course he didn’t think you’d want a child right now, you’re single and you haven’t gone through school yet.”

Arthur can feel his blood pressure rising again. “Mal,” he warns. 

“But,” she says, rushing now, “you know that we both love you and you can stay with us, whatever choice you make. Dom should have… well, you know he thinks of you as his left arm.”

“I do know that,” Arthur sighs. “I’m still. Well. I still have to do this.”

“But you did not take your car, your bags, nothing. Come meet me for lunch and I will bring you what you need and some snacks for the plane.”

“Mal, I didn’t just go stay at a hotel for the night … I’m going to drive, and I’m already five hours out. I’m probably half an hour north of Bakersfield.”

Mal makes a surprised noise, and then seems to recover. “My efficient darling.” 

“I didn’t feel so efficient when I rolled out of bed at noon,” he confides, and then tells her what he needs. 

*

California scrolls by slowly outside of his window. About every hour or two, some tragedy of timing and inattention happens and both lanes come to a halt and then start back up to crawl around it. He has a lot of time to look at his egg in the rear view mirror and have a good chat with his egg. 

“Okay, so I know this seems terrible. You and I making this drive, and going to see Eames.  _ But!  _ No, there is no but I’m sure I could think of one if I was in a fresh set of clothes. I could really, really do with a wardrobe change. Where the hell is the nearest Men’s Wearhouse?”

“You’re not missing much. Flat, flat nothing. I would kill for an avocado, though. Next sign I see for roadside fruit, I am definitely pulling over.”

“ _ It's a cool place and they say it gets colder, if you're bundled up now wait til you get older, but the media men beg to differ, judging by the hole in the satellite picture.” _

“I don't know if your … Other parent… Is going to be mad. I mean. I don't think he can. Your fertilization was improbable, but not necessarily anyone's fault. And he doesn't have to see you if he doesn't want to. I'll tell him that. There’s nothing wrong with you. You’re going to be great. It’s just. Having an egg is such a big… Well. Not when you’re an egg, actually. Having an egg is one of the easiest things. I never get people who mess up that part. Don’t repeat that to your Aunt Mal. You know, you’re not going to be an egg forever, and that’s the scariest part. I’ve done this before, but it’s different this time.”

“Okay, I was right, getting into a fresh pair of clothes and some carbs was definitely the way to make a pro-con list, because I can definitely think of some pros now. You might or might not have a second parent, we don't know for sure yet. By time time you hatch, Philipa will be almost five, and James will be a year old. That’s like having built in friends. And I have a very particular skill set that may not translate well into, you know, the 9-5 world, but to be honest your dad is fucking great at — that's me. Your dad. Holy shit.”

*

At the hotel at the end of the second long day of driving, he feels much more like himself, with five spare shirts and out of his 48 hour jeans. He's even picked up a new travel bag. It isn't worn in, not the way his duffel is, but he likes the heft of it. It has potential. 

He makes a curl out of two towels to set the egg on the bathroom floor while he showers and the hot cascade is the best thing he’s felt all week. It’s like the first time he had a pair of hydrocodone after he had his wisdom teeth taken out. 

Dom had been laughing the whole time.  _ How do you feel? _ he’d asked, and Arthur had said,  _ I feel so good.  _ And then he’d gone on to list all of the grudges he was letting go of, dating all the way back to 1995. 

The memory pangs a little bit, because he’s not ready to forgive Dom, wouldn’t be if he had a dozen elephant painkillers, because right now he could really use a friend, and instead, he’s making a week long trip by himself. If Dom had come along, if Mal had come along, if Mal had come home first, if if if. Instead, Arthur is alone with his egg and three thousand miles of road to make a decision. 

If Dom hadn’t been so shocked, so incongruously angry, acting as if Arthur had betrayed him, no doubt he would have eased Arthur into his plan, or at least made a more genuine offer. Then, Arthur might have had time to  _ think  _ about it without the immediate, roiling resentment he feels tangled up in the whole thing now. 

It’s not a bad idea. It’s generous, actually, that he would offer, because he’s not wrong. Arthur didn’t plan this, he’s not with Eames, and he has no skills or real world qualifications beyond a high school diploma and his ability to bend the collective unconscious to his will, his research and eye for details. But Arthur would be lying to himself if he wasn’t already starting to think of it as something of  _ his own,  _ something he’s been absently half-yearning for, with or without Eames. 

Churning in the same waters: panic. It’s not the panic of a life derailed, because he’s been part of a family, children have been part of his future for years, he’s been half-parent for all of his adult life. It’s different, though. 

In spite of his doubts, he gets into bed at a decent hour and for the most part, sleeps like the dead. He wakes in the ealy morning once to rotate the egg before going back to sleep until nine, knowing that he’s stationary until 

*

At noon the hotel front desk rings to tell him about his package. 

It comes in a lumpy manila envelope and he empties it on the hotel bed. A note, his passport, his favorite watch, four granola bars. 

_ Dom and I love you very much. Call if you need anything.  _

*

Every day of the drive past California, Arthur nearly hops on a plane. He complains through Oregon and Washington, complains even more through Canada, impatient at the border and itching to get to Eames. He keeps chatting with his egg. 

“We’d be making better time if Dom wasn’t an ass,” he tells it. “We’d just be driving all night instead of having to stop.” 

Someone cooes at his egg that fourth morning, while he’s getting an early hotel breakfast. He hasn’t managed his hair yet, which is when people are least intimidated by his scowling. 

“Do you know the gender?” the only other person getting breakfast wants to know. 

“No,” Arthur says, looking down and smiling a little. “I candled last night, actually, just to make sure… We’re only a week in.”

“Ohh,” she says, giving the top of his egg a friendly rub. “It’ll be a while yet, then!” 

Arthur makes an assenting noise and she wishes him luck before she leaves and he’s allowed to go back to his coffee. 

*

The house in Anchorage is sprawling, visually interesting, white siding and brick and a three car garage. he puts the egg in his new duffle bag. “Just — so I have a chance to tell him,” Arthur says, giving it a little kiss and then zipping it away.

Eames answers the door in jeans and a bomber jacket. “You’re just in time,” he says, with a coy smile. “Let me take this,” he says, reaching for Arthur’s bag.

Arthur’s heart gives a lurch. “I’ve got it,” he says.

Eames doesn’t fight him. “That’s not your car,” he says, looking at the driveway.

“I’m mad at Dom,” Arthur says. “And he’d have me tracked down in thirty minutes.”

“That would explain fact that you got home and turned right around.”

“Sorry about that,” Arthur says, feeling called out. He hopes his face isn't coloring.

“By all means,” Eames says, gesturing at the house. “My gorgeous mansion on loan from author Kacia Fairbanks is your gorgeous mansion on loan from Kacia Fairbanks.” 

Arthur smiles in acknowledgement. “So you're what, in the tourism industry now?” 

“I'm trying it out. You know there's only so much of people subconscious dirty laundry you can dig through before it gets a little tedious.” 

“So your solution to tedium is writer’s block?” 

“Well, a change up always helps.”

“What happened to renovations?”

Eames waves a hand. “We’ll always have HGTV,” he says, with a cheeky wink. “And I’m hardly done with the Maryland house, but I’ve been working this angle for more than a year. I met Kacia at the expo in New York two years ago, and when she called me after you left and told me she was ready to take me up on the offer...”

“So you met an author and just waited for her to run out of steam. A war of attrition with creative energy?” Arthur asks, huffing out a laugh. 

“I was in a war of attrition with hundreds of authors, I’ll have you know,” Eames says. “And Kacia is my favorite. I have a good feeling that her brain is going to be a lot of fun.”

“Eames, are you here to — am I intruding?”

“No. If I have the time to go deep, romance can be an effective route, but when you’re casting a wider net, it’s easiest to make women feel at ease by assuring them they’re safe from your abundant sexuality. You know, that you’re married. Or gay. Or both.”

Arthur frowns, curling a hand around the strap of his duffle. “So what's my role here?”

“Don’t be silly.” Eames grins. It is half feral, and Arthur’s stomach swoops. “You’re here as my partner, darling.”


	11. Chapter 11

Arthur isn't sure if he wants to laugh hysterically or burst into spontaneous tears.

“You want me to pretend to be married to you?” Arthur gapes.

“Oh come on,” Eames says, voice like smokey honey, if the honey in question was bent on seduction, “you’re going to have the time of your life.”

Arthur makes an exaggerated face.

Eames rolls his eyes, elbowing Arthur jovally. “I’ll have you know, I am a fucking delight.” Arthur almost loses his balance.

“That’s sometimes true,” he says, smiling a little and trying to sound just as flip as Eames does. It is difficult to keep his eyes from sliding down the rippling breadth of Eames’ torso. “And you’re right. How hard can it be? I mean, we’ve already honeymooned in Paris.”

“That’s the spirit,” Eames says, and finally opens the door.

In Kasia Fairchild’s gorgeous house, Arthur has a sudden knot of new anxiety. He’s had almost a week to himself, time to convince himself that he was doing the right thing. It was a legal job with no risk, and he’s not really a team mate, so if Eames is angry with him, or wants nothing to do with the two of them, he will get on a plane and go — home or somewhere that isn't his home, maybe go see his mom. He's going to have to tell her soon, he just wanted to know, first, if he should change his plans in any way to accommodate potential interest from Eames.

“Is your author home?”

“No,” Eames says, shaking his head with a little grin. “She's got a day job, but she will be in a few hours.”

Is this Arthur’s moment? Rumpled from a week in the car and with his child in his shoulder bag? His fucking _child_ in his shoulder bag. “So what did you mean, I was just in time?”

“Well, darling,” he says, the same way Mal does, and it pings inside Arthur, sweet with a little bit of an aftershock. “I have two thirds of a fantasy trilogy to read, and you’re just in time for me to delegate that to you.”

“That is within my range of skills,” Arthur says, following Eames in.

“I know,” Eames says. “Let me show you our room.”

Eames points out basic directions to him as he leads him into the house, foyer and bathrooms and wide, spacious de, but he walks slowly, and asks Arthur about his trip in between.

“I had a hell of a time renting a car,” Arthur tells him a little ruefully.

Eames looks puzzled until Arthur clarifies. “They want you to be twenty five.”

Eames lets out a laugh. “And you let that stop you. What kind of criminal are you?”

“Clearly a sub-par one,” Arthur says. He suspects his traitorous ears are turning pink, but doesn’t have it confirmed until Eames reaches out to pinch the flexible curl of one.

Arthur will feel safe leaving his egg in his duffle for another ten minutes, no more. When Eames shows him into a room, which is typical of a guest room, nice but impersonal, and instead of leaving, he throws himself backwards onto the bed.

Eames gives the bedspread a friendly pat.

“Oh,” Arthur says, his feet failing to bring him to Eames, fingering the tail of his shirt instead while he hesitates.

“What’s got your knickers in a bunch, then?” Eames says, looking genuinely interested. It’s as good an in as Arthur’s going to get in the next ten minutes, surely.

He moves towards the bed, sits. His duffle is a heavy weight, and he pulls it onto his lap as he moves close to Eames.

“I’m going to tell you something,” Arthur says. He opens his mouth, but no sound comes out.

Eames is frowning now, eyes steadfast on Arthur. “Well that’s bloody ominous.”

“I didn’t do this on purpose,” Arthur says, and feels like someone is whisking his insides. He pinches the tab of the zipper, opening by inches the flap of his bag and then moving aside a grey henley he’d draped over the top.

With the secret out, Arthur shoves his bag out of his lap and situates the egg there instead.

“And you’re out with the … Cobb’s sprog on a field trip?” Eames asks, with the least authentic attempt at casualty that Arthur has ever seen.

“Well. The Cobbs certainly wanted it,” Arthur says, careful. “But it doesn’t belong to them, no.”

Eames is very still. “So you came here to offer me first dibs?”

“No.” Arthur says, hands instinctively spanning the top of the egg protectively. “I have first dibs, actually.”

“It’s definitely mine,” Eames says, unsure.

“Well. Biologically speaking, yeah. There’s no question about that. Otherwise, I don’t have any expectations of you.”

“Well. That explains the U-turn four days after I put you on a plane to California.” Eames says. “May I?”

Arthur only briefly pauses. “Hey. I’m going to hand you off, okay?” he says, in a low voice right up against the shell. He knows that it can’t hear him yet, but he read once, when he was eighteen and desperate not to fuck up his newfound position with the Cobbs that it was a good idea to get into the habit of talking to an egg and it had worked well enough with Pip, who’d hatched and squirmed with delight at the sound of his voice almost immediately.

When Eames takes his egg — their egg — Arthur tries not to read anything into it. Eames hasn’t signed up to be the father of Arthur’s children. They’re not even a couple, of course Eames doesn’t want to start a fucking _family_ with him.

“I’m sorry,” Arthur blurts.

“You hardly did it on purpose,” Eames says, shrugging. “You remember that first time, in Paris after that job.”

Arthur feels himself flush, embarrassed. “When I didn’t let you because I wasn’t sure how long I’d had that one condom?”

Eames smiles in acknowledgement, just a little. “Like I said. Nothing is foolproof, even for the most detail oriented point man I know.”

Arthur dips his head, anxious but relieved that Eames doesn’t blame him, isn’t furious, hasn’t turned him out yet.

“Look at you,” Eames says, directly to his egg, and looking at it even while he directs his next question at Arthur. “How big is the little guppy now?”

“Eight days,” he says. He taps the nail of his own thumb for a size comparison. “Give or take.”

Eames arranges the egg inside of his jacket, against his chest on one side, and uses the opposite arm to give it a brisk rub, the same way most people get rid of goosebumps. “You had it in your bag?” His tone is neutral enough that Arthur doesn’t get his hackles up.

“Six or seven minutes,” he says. “I didn’t want you to shit yourself when you opened the door.”

“About that...” Eames says.

“I didn’t know you wanted me to be, you know, married to you.” Arthur says, haltingly. “In my defense.”

Eames scrubs his hand over his own face. He is so handsome. It is a ridiculous time to notice, although it’s less that Arthur notices it and more that Arthur is _always_ aware of it. “Well, that hadn’t been my plan, of course, until you said you wanted in on what I was doing and I had to decide on a role for you.”

“You could have warned me,” Arthur says, feeling his shoulders tense without his say so.

“It was going to be funny,” Eames says. “I hardly knew you’d —” he cuts himself off.

“What?” Arthur says.

Eames taps with the pad of his thumb on the broad side of the egg. “I hardly knew you’d have a plus one,” he says. “Can I ask you… are you glad?”

“Am I glad that at some point during a dirty weekend my protection failed?” Even as he says it, Arthur wants to punch himself in the mouth. He hardly meant to reduce his (surprisingly wholesome and affectionate) holiday with Eames to a ‘dirty weekend’. A holiday where he’d ostensibly conceived a child. Especially not in the middle of this conversation.

Eames doesn’t flinch. “No. But that there’s an egg here.”

“I don’t know,” Arthur croaks, which is a lie. He’s spent the last week on his child’s first road trip, keeping it in his rear view mirror, getting a jump start on all the lectures it will get growing up, and getting up a few times a night to rotate the shell. That’s his child in there. Even on the first day, something had roared up in Arthur, something bold enough to leave against the impossible force of what Dom wanted.

“You’ve always been a natural,” Eames says.

Arthur nods, silently. He doesn’t tell him it’s different, this time, a little scarier.

Eames leans over and Arthur’s heart picks up speed as his generous mouth lands on Arthur’s eyebrow. “Congratulations.”

Arthur accepts it with a tilt of his head. When Eames moves back, he settles himself against the headboard more comfortably. He is still holding onto Arthur’s egg. The visual is frankly stunning.

Arthur sits with him for a few moments, before he feels compelled to ask. “Do you want to make an excuse to your client, and I’ll get out of here before she gets home? You can tell her something came up with work.”

“No,” Eames says, firmly, and takes Arthur’s hand. “I’ll just tell her that my beloved husband has a wonderful surprise for me.”

He knows that Eames has set up this ruse to ingratiate himself with the client a year ago, that he took it a step further to involve Arthur specifically because Arthur told him he was bored and wanted in on whatever Eames was working, without leaving a lot of room to turn him down. Still, even knowing all of that, the butterflies in Arthur’s stomach could probably ruffle the curtains if he opened his mouth and set them free.


	12. Chapter 12

They agree without saying that they will table the discussion in favor of the job, an Arthur is nervous and excited in equal measure about the prospects of  _ pretending  _ to be in a relationship with Eames, that they’re happy and established and raising a child together. Eames does eventually hand Arthur his egg back, but not until he’s satisfied with its surface temperature. 

Shortly after that, Arthur discovers with a certain amount of shock that Eames is only fifteen pages into the second novel of the trilogy. 

“Well, darling,” he says, turning a little pink. He’s got the long neck of a beer bottle against his mouth, and he grins around it. “I knew my nerdy point man was heading up here. I didn’t know you were going to  _ walk through Canada  _ to get here.”

“So you just stopped where you were when I called?”

“No, you twat. I’ve been reading all week.” 

Arthur lets that sit for a moment. Arthur can chew up a book a day, and Eames is brilliant, can whir from topic to topic and skitter across each one with the casualty of a rushed but uncontested expert, so Arthur had assumed the same of him. It’s weird to know that Eames is a slow reader, intimate somehow. 

Almost as intimate as it feels to be sprawled in a stranger’s house, Eames belly down across the couch and Arthur on the floor with his back to them. He's got a thick trade paperback, it's spine resting on his egg, contained unassumingly. He drums his fingers along the curved length of it, occasionally subvocalizing a phrase he wants to commit to memory. 

He pays special attention to the scenery. 

*

Anchorage, Alaska gets almost eighteen hours of civil twilight, so when Kasia Fairbanks opens the door at almost eight at night, slanted light pours in behind her. She’s unusually short and uniquely shaped - a snowman in a pencil skirt. 

“Richard,” she says. Her tone is warm, but her voice is a pack-a-day low rasp. Arthur climbs to his feet, but Eames keeps his sprawl. 

“Kasia, love,” Eames says, sounding like a lazy aristocrat, playing up the structure of his accent. Arthur has never heard him go by Richard before. 

“And you must be Arthur,” she says, turning to him. Arthur flicks his eyes back to Eames, quickly, and back to Kasia. 

“That’s me,” he says, awkwardly pinning his egg to his torso with one elbow so he can hold out a hand.

“I didn’t know congratulations were in order,” she says, looking at Arthur’s curled arm. 

“Neither did I,” Eames says, mouth unspooling into a grin. “But look at it.” 

“It looks like an egg,” she says, flatly amused.

“Now Kasia… Don't say something you don't mean,” Eames says, giving Arthur a little shoulder bump with his own.

“But better, obviously,” she says, as Eames seems mollified.

“Anyway,” he says, “I’ve had my beloved hard at work, all day, getting a lay of the scenery. Arthur’s a dream of an architect. He’s going to have High Vaspian accurate to the wall sconces.”

Arthur works not to flush, reminds himself that he’s playing a man who probably hears that sort of thing all the time, because panting like a stray dog over Eames’ praise doesn’t scream marriage. Kasia claps her hands together, eyes alight. “Sounds like you and I are going to be great friends, Arthur.”

Arthur doesn’t get chummy with clients on the whole, Tony and his nightmares withstanding, but this isn’t his client. This is an author, which is generally a profession that gets Arthur’s complete respect, as someone who moved into a couple’s house with more paperbacks than outfits. Even beyond all of that, this particular job is practically legal. With all of these things in mind, Arthur gives her a friendly grin.

At dinner, she has this to say on the topic of her upcoming bout of lucid dreaming: “No one is  _ behaving,  _ so I was just thinking about when I met Richard at BEA _. _ ” She’s a little dramatic, talking quickly, but she doesn’t want to talk to them too much before they finish the books. Doesn’t want to  _ taint their impressions of the book because of how charmed they are by her,  _ so instead she talks about how drug use and prostitution are victimless crimes, and then about how much she hates “fancy lettuce” which Arthur realizes after a bit more description means  _ arugula. _

Arthur keeps looking at Eames, amused. He drops his hand down innocuously to Eames’ thigh, close to the knee, and spells out two words with his fingertip.  _ S-h-e-s y-o-u,  _ he writes, pressing his thumb down bluntly between the two words to separate them.

*

Arthur is keeping detailed notes, of course. He is keeping track of three distinct cultures and countries and he’s got a seperate page for all mentions of geography and fauna, another for language rules.

Eames, alternately, has a character sheet in front of him, making dozens of drawings in ballpoint pen of the main character, the same face with various changes to each: some more handsome, one with a crooked nose, heavier eyebrows.

“This one looks the way I picture Terian,” Arthur says, touching the shaded jaw of one of them when he passes absently, the one with a lined forehead and crow’s feet. Eames pulls out a new sheet.  

When Kasia sees Arthur’s notes, she is immediately enthralled. “Can I keep him?” She asks. She directs her question at Eames. “I’ve always been shit at keeping the timelines straight, and  _ look at this! _ ”

Eames shrugs. “Well, now that he’s keeping my egg warm, you’re just going to have to wait.”

But  then she sees Eames’ art and her eyes fall half out of her head. “I asked the wrong husband. No wait. Both, both is good, feel free to move in, the two of you, so long as your baby doesn’t make any noise whatsoever.”

Strangely, the fact that Kasia is clearly not a baby person makes Arthur feel sharply relieved. He hasn’t had to grit his teeth while she paws at his egg even once. On top of that, the job is interesting, something he hasn’t done before, somewhat legal and he’s completing it with Eames — just the two of them.

Besides all of that, Eames is playing the devoted husband to a tee, Arthur is punch drunk, flush with the fact that he is — part of the con or not — living the dream.

*

The second day when Kasia goes to work, Arthur finishes the second book by eleven in the morning, reading curled up on his side in the guest bed, his egg against his abdomen, Arthur absently turning it over every so often, and then backtracks back to page fifteen.

“The morning had swallowed Terrian’s anger,” he reads aloud, feeling nervous, unsure of how Eames is going to react, “until he was filled solely with the shame of last night’s actions. There was cold ash and broken pottery —” 

Eames, who had been making a house of cards slides his eyes over to Arthur. Arthur pauses, licking his bottom lip. “Go on, darling,” is all he has to say, so Arthur  _ goes on _ .

Arthur reads to him, in a low, relentless voice. Eames tips his head back and closes his eyes. 

Arthur is distracted from the page meme fairly by the enticing line of Eames’ throat. He belatedly clears his throat, a few times, like that's the delay, and picks up again. 

*

Kasia Fairchild is pleasant. A little manic, coming home from work in a bit of a frenzy most nights. 

When she's home, Eames gravitates to him, hands on their egg and eyes returning periodically. Arthur, combing through the first two books over and over to keep himself focused, feels faintly flushed for forty eight hours until the novelty wears off. 

Eames brushes Arthur's knuckles to take his egg and Arthur's pulse reaches a fresh crescendo. So — the novelty hasn't worn off. 

He brings in the rental car seat to put the egg in while he and Eames go under for a test run. He gets a certain amount of satisfaction to watch Eames strap it in, after testing the temperature with the skin of his wrist. 

“Stay put, you,” he says, and Arthur has the fleeting impulse to hide his face in his own tie. 

*

They do definitely do not have sex in a guest bedroom, because Arthur is too mature for that. 

“Bollocks,” Eames says, when Arthur tells him that. 

“We’re in someone else’s house, Eames.” Arthur tells him, primly from his own side of the bed. 

Eames’ mouth briefly hangs open. “You  _ live  _ in a guest bedroom.”

Of course, faced with the options of defending his status as a household member or admitting to Eames that he can still count the amount of hookups he’s had in that room on one hand, Arthur flounders. 

“Okay,” he says. “You got me. If you can be completely silent, I'll pull you off.” 

“That sounds… Lovely,” Eames says, with wry distaste. 

“Your call,” Arthur shrugs. 

“I have a better idea,” Eames says, and pulls off his own sweatshirt in one efficient move. 

“What —” Arthur says, as Eames plucks his egg up and wraps it up with it, shushing him. 

“I’m going to put your cock in my mouth, dear one, as husbands do, and then we’ll see how you're feeling after that.”

“Uh,” Arthur says, suddenly overwhelmed by Eames, who is looking at him from between his knees, suddenly. Eames nuzzles the soft lump of his cock with his  _ face  _ through the cotton of Arthur’s pajamas. It hasn’t been long since Arthur’s been with Eames, but he feels lonely all the same. It can’t possibly be a good idea to be intimate with him with an egg and a job and who even knows— 

“No,” Arthur says, heart pounding, but wanting so badly to kiss Eames all the same. “Come up here.”

*

“ — my husband has —”

*

“Arthur, dear,”

*

“Come on, love. Show Kasia what—”

*

“— the baby —”

Arthur keeps missing his mouth with his fork. 

*

Eames’ projection of Kasia Fairchild’s protagonist Terrian is… uncomfortably handsome. By the time they finish the job, Arthur is pretty sure he now has a thing for codpieces which he can already tell is going to plague him for life, most likely coming up at some point that is sure to humiliate him. 

On the last day they spend with Kasia, they leave in Arthur’s rental car, which he’s now had for almost three weeks. “I’m kind of in love with this model now,” Arthur tells Eames. He loves the seat, too, but it’s not a convertible — it’ll be completely useless after his egg hatches. 

“Trade yours in when you get home,” Eames suggests, with an easygoing shrug. Arthur pulls out his phone and opens google maps. 

“I’m thinking about it,” Arthur says. “I’ll head back to the border after I drop you off at the airport.”

“What the fuck, Arthur. You didn’t drive a week for this job to split up at the airport,” Eames says, and he sounds genuinely shocked. 

Eames had been the one to mention  _ when Arthur gets home.  _ More than once. And — well. Eames is a wildcard. When Arthur hadn’t had an explicit invitation to follow Eames to wherever he’s headed next, so half of him expected to have a single airport confession where Eames could tell him everything he couldn’t say this week without making things into an awkward mess and not hear from him again for a solid decade. 

“You’re coming with me, you twat. We’re not done here.” Eames huffs. 

“Alright,” Arthur says, trying to keep his face impassive. “I do need to figure out how to return this car, though. I doubt there’s an Alaska branch for me to turn it in to.”

“Can we just leave it at the airport?”

“Eames.”

“I’ll make you a new identity. How does Rupert sound?” 

“I am going to drive us into a lake,” Arthur says pleasantly. 

Eames stops having helpful suggestions, then, which is nice. Arthur, despite all odds, enjoys the long drive to the airport, which gives him enough time to offer someone a truly ridiculous sum of money to deal with his rental.

When they get there, he and Eames get on the same airplane, Arthur’s egg in his lap until he starts to drift. He’s only half awake when he feels Eames pull it from him, and his protective instincts aren’t quite enough to rouse him. 

Eames has it under control, probably. 


	13. Chapter 13

“How does this flight feel longer than the road trip I took to get to you,” Arthur says, without opening his eyes. Eames puts an arm around his shoulders, drawing Arthur to him. Arthur shifts sleepily towards him. 

“You drove for a week,” Eames says into his hair. 

“All the same.” Arthur moves a clumsy hand towards Eames, which he catches in his own. Arthur lets himself drift pleasantly. 

*

They rent a car and a new carseat (a different model, the temperature toggles don’t have as many degrees of precision. Arthur is not impressed with it, but it’ll get them back to Eames’ house just fine.) when they get to Maryland. 

Finally, he and Eames are alone, the elephant in the car strapped firmly into its carrier, and going another moment without talking about it would be ludicrous. “I want it,” Arthur tells him. 

“I got that, thanks,” Eames says. “One doesn’t say  _ fuck off  _ to one’s dad when they don’t care what happens.”

“Dom’s not,” Arthur prickles, but then checks himself. His own nerves are making him tense. Eames understands dynamics, and he knows Arthur. “I think mostly I had to get out of California to think.” 

“I appreciate you coming to tell me.”

“I didn’t really feel like there was an appropriate alternative,” Arthur says, although there had been a solution offered to him. He’s not lying — it hadn’t felt like an offer he could take, from its blurted offer, through the long, soul-searching road trip that happened in the next week. 

“That’s commendable, too. You had a lot of options.” 

Arthur feels nervous, even as he asks, “Would you have been happier if I’d went with one of them?”

Eames flicks his eyes over to Arthur before looking back the road. “I think you’re trying to jump the queue, love.”

“Fine,” Arthur says. “Ask away, then.”

“Did you make up with Cobb?”

“Is that really what you want to ask first?” Arthur asks. Eames raises one eyebrow at him, tapping his fingers on the steering wheel. Arthur’s in the passenger seat, to Eames’ right, so Arthur can see his crooked little finger. 

“Yeah,” Arthur says. 

He had. He’d taken a long drive to take Dom’s call, parked in the August sun, incongruously bright in the late afternoon, and exchanged words with him for an hour. Some of them had been less painful than others, and then he’d spoken to Mal, and Dom again. Two of them had cried. 

Eames seems to be waiting for him to respond. “You asked a closed ended question,” Arthur points out.

“So I did,” Eames says. “What was the resolution of your conversation?”

“That I’d be home when I got home. After you and I had time to talk.” 

“Oh.”

“Indeed,” Arthur says, wryly. “Now I think you've had enough follow up questions. It's my turn.”

Of course, the only answer he needs to know is the most terrifying, treacherous. He realizes now that it had been easy enough to decide that he wanted this egg, wanted to raise it. It feels like a complete picture, something he’s good at and something he’s half-wanted for a while. It scares him that Eames might not want anything to do with it.

It also scares him that he might. 

He turns around in the chair to take a fortifying look. “It might be old enough to catch a glimpse of soon. For gendering purposes, I mean. Of course you can see it now.”

“Shall we stop at a Wegman’s on the way home for a set of candles?” 

“I have a few in my bag, actually.” 

“Well, there’s our night sorted.”

“What are you thinking?” 

“Well,” Eames says, and he sounds very serious. “It was a shock, of course. But I've had a week to pretend that it's the best thing that happened to us.” 

“Fake it until you make it,” Arthur suggests weakly, tone lifting like a joke. 

“I wouldn’t put it in those terms,” Eames says. He drives a little faster, greenery blurring behind him. “But I would say that when you add a surprise child to a situation where there’s already a lot of love, it’s … well, it’s not hard to picture, and I don’t want things to spin out of control.” 

“Love,” Arthur repeats, only once out loud, but then it echoes in his mind like an empty cathedral. 

“Fondness,” Eames corrects. “Respect. Attraction.”

Arthur feels brave, suddenly. Eames has had every chance to discourage him from any number of things — from raising his egg, from coming home with him, from this conversation, even. “The party line you’re sticking with sounds a lot like love,” Arthur says. 

“Feels that way, too.” Eames says. He’s grinning a little bit, eyes on the road. “But obviously things are a little complicated.”

“That’s a pretty good summary,” Arthur says. He glances down at his own phone to look at their progress. They’re close enough to Eames’ home that Arthur falls quiet, curling on his seat to look behind them. 

“It’s not going anywhere,” Eames assures him. 

*

“You started a new project,” Arthur notes, straight in the door. There are cans of paint at the kitchen table with plum and gold dabs on the top, the way they do when you’ve mixed your own paint. Arthur doesn’t know what they’re for, but they weren’t there when he left this place. 

“Yeah. Don’t take your shoes off, there’s a lot of stray bits,” Eames says, and Arthur pauses with the toe of one show against the heel of the other. 

“Noted.” 

“Oh, and I did finish one, too,” Eames says.

“Prove it,” Arthur scoffs.

Eames steps ahead of him, leading the way. Arthur follows. It feels good after a long drive to have the warm heft of his egg in his arms. Arthur catalogs as he steps through tarps and papered off sections of the floor, the same as before. It is a stark reminder that he was here so recently.

“Voila,” he says.

“Eames —”

“Fucking spectacular is the word you’re looking for, right?”

Arthur wants to make fun of him, but the truth is… “There’s no fucking way you did this between when I left and when you flew into Anchorage.”

“Of course not,” Eames says. “I had — you remember — I had bookshelves pulled over this wall before. I’ve been working on it on and off for a year.”

“It’s incredible,” Arthur tells him, and goes to look at it close up. The newly vacated wall of Eames’ library is filled with a glittering mosaic.

“I can’t really explain sight to you,” Arthur says, bringing his egg to his mouth, cupped in both hands. “But you’re really missing a work of art.”

Eames is fairly glowing at the compliment, indirect as it was. He moves into Arthur’s space, putting his own mouth close to the egg, “Your father is exaggerating, but maybe you can see it for yourself soon.”

Eames reaches past it to touch Arthur.

“Things are too complicated for this, Eames,” Arthur says, but he’s leaning into the touch of Eames’ fingertips at his neck.

“Let’s complicate them a little more,” Eames says, reeling him in.

It’s not like Arthur doesn’t want to. It’s not like Arthur doesn’t have the same nebulous, messy mix, attraction and adoration and the dangerous feeling that it might be so easy…

“Alright,” he says.

*

They have to take a brief recess so that Arthur can go out to the car and get the seat and set it up in Eames’ bedroom, in the corner. Arthur puts a blanket over it for good measure before going back to Eames.

“You’re so competent,” Eames says, while Arthur climbs over him, still in his jeans and the polo he’s been wearing all day.

Arthur rolls his eyes, but he can feel himself smiling. “That’s sexy,” he grouses.

“No, it is,” Eames says. “Gets me so hot.”

Arthur wants to roll his eyes at Eames, but he looks so serious. He feels, cognitively, that he should be flip, but instead, his stomach gives a sudden lurch. “Good to know,” Arthur says, licking his lips, which suddenly feel so dry.

Eames is prone beneath him, and there are no other adults in the home to hear them. And they’re well on their way to sorting out this whole mess. Arthur is so relieved that he forgets to engage in the near-constant anxiety he’s batted around for weeks. Arthur leans down to kiss him, mouthing down the side of his neck while one hand strokes inside of Eames’ shirt. “Lovely,” he whispers.

Eames beneath him is such a sturdy weight, broad. He’s something like a fantasy, but real and warm and moving. He’s got one hand resting on Arthur’s beltline, low on his back, and the other cupping Arthur’s face, directing Arthur back to his mouth and luxuriating in the simple pleasure of stress free making out.

When Arthur finally gets him out of his trousers, Eames insists on putting a condom on both of them before they can fool around. “I’m not about to raise stepstair kids,” Eames says, giving the latex-clad head of Arthur’s cock a friendly pat. “The best I can figure is that I got some jizz on you when we were watching that home improvement show.” He taps Arthur’s belly, now, like Arthur might not remember where ejaculate lands. “The one where the idiots pretend that the tiny houses are sound for long term travel, and you weren’t wearing a condom.”

“That’s what I’d figured, too,” Arthur says. “Except I think it was a show where they house shop for the couple. You know, one of them wants to move, but the other one likes the house?”

“Alright,” Eames concedes easily enough. “Point is, a statistically unlikely thing happened. I know it’s statistically unlikely that your body would fertilize an egg within six months of the last one, but a statistically unlikely thing happened to us a month ago, so.”

“Condoms. Condoms for everyone,” Arthur agrees cheerfully, high on the situation, on the curl of Eames hair, which is so far out of cut that Arthur should insist on doing it himself in the morning. But right now… “Come here, you,” he says, and Eames complies.

*

“I want to tell you something,” Arthur says, after, absently pressing the heel of his hand to his abdomen.

“Go ahead, pet,” Eames says. He is curled on his side around their egg and looking past Arthur, but Arthur knows that he has his full attention.

“When we met. You mentioned that the Cobbs had picked up a sitter.”

“It was a joke, Arthur. I didn’t mean anything by it,” Eames says, but Arthur shushes him.

“It was true.”

“You’d been working with them for at least a year by then.”

“More,” Arthur says. “They hired me before, the egg before Phil. They didn’t know if the problem was a deficiency in Mal’s eggs or if it was a nurture problem. They had me on standby ready to provide the egg for her if I needed to.”

Eames’ eyebrows make a jump. “Are you Phillipa’s egg-parent?”

“No,” Arthur says, rueful.

“Okay,” Eames says, laying back.

“I am James’, though,” Arthur says, anxiety quickening his heartbeat as effectively as lust, with a sickly, sinking backwash feeling in his chest. He feels cracked open, telling Eames, even though he’s not ashamed. He’s wary, though, that Eames might think differently of him, of their egg. “Cobb, he stays on birth control because his eggs don’t calcify.”

“When we were in Paris, and you said there was something complicating things for you, too,” Eames says.

“Bingo,” Arthur says. “Dom had just asked me when he dropped me off at the airport. Talk about a holiday buzzkill.”

“He can be a bit of a twat,” Eames says, laughing.

“Yeah. His timing is fucked, definitely. And, you know, when I laid this egg he lost his shit a little bit, but I think he just panicked. In his mind he just kind of assumed that it was a disaster, because I think he still sort of thinks of me as the same kid he met. He didn’t think I could have been okay with it, and he dropped into Work Dom — a quick lecture and then jumping to a solution.”

“A pretty fucked up solution,” Eames muses, running a fingertip in a circular motion on the shell.

“If I hadn’t been ready to raise an egg, or you’d been angry about it for some reason, or if they were actually ready and excited about a third child, it might have been viable.”

“Certainly didn’t give you the space to choose,” Eames says.

“Nobody’s perfect,” Arthur says, starting to feel heavy with jet lag. Before he closes his eyes and submits (he knows that it’s going to be about ten seconds between when he stops fighting sleep and when it arrives to claim him) there’s one last thing he wants to say. “I just wanted you to think about the possibility — my first child came out deaf. I don’t know who’s genetics that was. If that changes anything...”

“Darling, you’re being an idiot,” Eames says, and Arthur melts into the mattress, drooling before his brain is even fully offline.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Friendly reminder that in this handwavey egg-laying universe, everyone makes genetically expensive and genetically cheap gametes and the peep, in a hand-wavey way, can deposit or, um, suck up genetically cheap gametes (sperm) which is how Dom can lay an egg for Mal, and how Arthur accidentally got knocked up. My (hand-wavey) thought is that the reverse-ejaculation doesn't typically happen without somebody's peep being ensconced in, you know, something. SO. That wasn't a *likely* outcome, but it did happen, so Eames is ready to keep them a one child family for the foreseeable future. Arthur and Eames vs. Statistical improbability round two. ;)
> 
> ANYWAYS. None of that matters, I wrote a weird fiction about dudes laying eggs and these two bozos are getting to be happy.


	14. Chapter 14

That night he dreams of his talk with Dom, and in his dream it goes differently. In his dream, he hits him, and then while Dom is nursing the bruise, Arthur gives him a long lecture. When Arthur wakes up, he can’t get a grasp on what he said, but he remembers vividly the satisfaction of getting to say it.

“I might have some unresolved feelings about the Cobbs,” he says, without opening his eyes. 

“No shit,” Eames mumbles. Arthur is suddenly aware that Eames’ face is smushed into his armpit, and his upper body is draped over Arthur’s chest. 

“And we were going to candle the egg last night,” Arthur says, feeling more and more awake, like he’s rapidly surfacing from deep water. 

“Sorry muffin,” Eames says. “Got distracted by your cock.” 

“Don’t call me muffin,” Arthur grouses, extricating himself from Eames’ overwarm grip. It’s — Arthur doesn’t know how to describe the counterintuitive pleasure he has at being inconvenienced by Eames. “I’ll make breakfast and then we can try it.”

“Breakfast,” Eames says, derisively, as if Arthur’s suggested something lewd. “Pass.” Eames groped down Arthur’s body with one sleep clumsy hand, finally landing on his groin above the thick, padded cotton of Eames’ comforter. 

“Off,” Arthur says, shoving him off. He’d had good intentions last night, too, before Eames started groping. He reminds them both of the agenda: “Breakfast. Candles.” 

*

Arthur finds bisquick in Eames’ pantry and makes chocolate chip pancakes for Eames, only catching himself just in time from turning the first one into something shaped out of habit. 

After breakfast, they draws Eames’ blinds, close the door, and Arthur fumbles with his lighter.

“Do you need me to get it?” Eames asks. 

“I’m actually good at this,” Arthur says, as his thumb slides off once again. He shoves it at Eames, who deals deftly and waits with Arthur in the quiet as he moves the egg gingerly over the flame gradually. They sit together quietly. 

“Boy! It’s a boy!” Eames points out, gleeful. 

“That’s — that could be a knee,” Arthur says, turning the egg in his hands. 

“Definitely not a knee,” Eames says, closing one eye with an exaggerated squint of the other. “That’s my son.”

“It’s curled up in a ball,” Arthur deflects, considering. “We can try again later.”

“No need,” Eames says. Cocky little shit. He takes the egg from Arthur. “Anyways. You were going to head out after we got that done with. You were going to pick up some supplies, remember?”

“You’re right. Do you want to put him in the car?” Arthur asks, feeling indulgent in the wake of Eames’ complete glee that he  _ might  _ have gendered their child, and honestly, he’s got fifty fifty odds. 

“Nope,” Eames says. “My son and I will stay here and bond while you do the boring shopping.”

*

Eames is wrong; it isn’t boring. On the contrary, there is something wildly soothing about shopping, always. 

He’s trawled through people’s unconscious thoughts for years now, and wasn’t an idiot to start with, he knows that some part of his hindbrain feels retroactively provided for. It’s even better, now, with his own child, that money is no longer an object to him. Not limitlessly, of course, but besides a few key wardrobe pieces he’s fallen in love with over the years, and one or two really nice non-clothing items he owns, everything Arthur wants is fairly modest. 

It makes him feel good to have a pack of eight paper towels in the pantry, and to know they’re there. It feels so much better to find a convertible high chair that he can use before and after the baby hatches and have it in his cart before he’s even thought it through. He picks out one in green and yellow, which seems gender neutral as color schemes go, but masculine enough to look like he doesn’t doubt Eames. Arthur is pleased by the compromise. 

He stops for groceries, too, just for a few days, a rotisserie chicken and vegetables for a soup, whole wheat dried pasta, and it gives him deja vu, because before he knows it, he’s building the same shopping cart he would at home, picking up Mal’s favorite spring mix of greens from produce, and Pip’s Spaghetti O’s.

Arthur knows he’s going to have to leave soon. He hasn’t seen his family in weeks, and he misses them dearly. 

“Thursday, I think,” he says, later that night.

Eames doesn look up from where he’s stirring the pot on the stovetop. “Thursday morning is no good, because I told Alejo I would have some IDs done for him, but Thursday night we can do something, sure.” 

“No,”  Arthur says. “I mean, I think I’m going to head back to California on Thursday.”

“Oh,” Eames says. 

“I mean. That’s where I live,” Arthur says. 

“Of course,” Eames responds, frowning, but he doesn’t argue. Arthur thinks it might be the fact that Eames knows now how deeply ingrained he is in the family in a way he didn’t before. “Were you planning on flying this time, or were you going to ride a bike?”

“I thought I’d go ahead and take the shortcut this time,” Arthur says, and Eames nods. 

“Thursday,” Eames agrees.

Arthur sets up the chair at the kitchen table. Most of the time he keeps it in the sling, but it’s nice to be able to sit down to eat with it secured. 

Arthur candles the egg again that night, Eames’ chin hooked over his shoulder, but his child stays stubbornly furled. “Oh no,” Eames teases, “Our son is just as uptight as you are.”

“Fuck off,” Arthur laughs, tilting it this way and that over the light. “I guess we admit defeat again.”

“We already know the gender, Arthur,” Eames says, unbearably smug. “He’s just feeling shy now.”

“I’m going to —” Arthur says, then hesitates. 

“You’re going to?” Eames prompts. 

“I’d like to... if I’m welcome to...” Arthur corrects and recorrects himself, feeling awkward, before changing tacts, “When can I come back?”

“When do you want to be back?”

“Soon?” Arthur hazards. “Before he egg hatches, certainly.”

Eames spreads his arms. “We’re having a child together, Arthur. I’m hardly enforcing a closed-door policy on you.”

“Yes,” Arthur says, darting his tongue out to swipe his dry bottom lip. “But do you want me?” Here. He’d meant to say  _ do you want me here?  _

Something flashes in Eames’ eyes. Arthur can practically read the words  _ okay so we’re doing this,  _ scroll through his mind. Arthur steels himself, feels his own abdominals tense up. Eames opens his mouth after taking a deep breath, and Arthur’s pulse just goes nuts. 

Eames says, “Yes,” and then stops. Closes his mouth. Looks expectantly at Arthur.  

Arthur blinks. “Okay.”

“Is that it?” Eames asks.

“You’re one to talk,” Arthur says, laughing while something unknots in his chest. Eames pulls him in so that they’re standing too close; the line of Eames’ profile is blurry at this distance. 

“We’re going to be parents,” Eames says, his hands holding Arthur near at the small of his back. “You and I. We flirted for the first time, what, five years ago? Don’t you think it’s time to give us an honest shot?” 

“Ten months ago, you didn’t think so,” Arthur says. “I mean — I’m not trying to argue, I just want to make sure.”

“It  _ wasn’t _ time then. I was still getting over an ex, and you were distracted with family planning for the Cobbs, apparently.”

All of the ingredients have been there, and Arthur hadn't really needed anything more, but he remembers with clarity the moment when Eames had turned off his flirtation and Arthur had discovered that Eames is faithful when he's dating. Remembers the sheer relief of it. He'd known then that he'd be open to him, one day, if he ever wanted. 

Well. There is an egg now, one that Arthur wants and somehow Eames wants, and Eames is asking. 

“Then yes. You’re right,” Arthur says, smiling. It feels good. 

“It happens. A broken clock and all that.” Eames says. He puts his arms around Arthur. “So you come back when you like, as early as you'd like.”

“Or you could come with me, if you'd like.”

Eames makes a face, nose scrunching immediately. “Nah.” 

Arthur laughs. “Dom apologized for trying to commandeer your egg.”

“If he’d done a bang up job of it you wouldn't still be trying to work through it in your sleep,” Eames says, derisive. 

Arthur thinks for a while moment that Eames has infiltrated his dreams, before getting a grasp of himself. He hasn't, wouldn't. It was a ridiculous thought. 

“You keep muttering about it in your sleep,” Eames explains, and Arthur only remembers the one but suddenly his response this morning makes so much sense. 

“Alright,” Arthur says, “I need to go see the kids and straighten things out. I'll be back in … Ten days?” 

“You might have to let yourself in,” Eames says, reaching for his keys, “but I'll try to coordinate.” 

*

He's had sex with Eames before. He's pretty good at it actually, now that they've been together enough to take notice of each other's shortcuts, now that Eames can head unerringly for the spot high on his neck that makes him shake, and Arthur knows how to add the slightest hit on teeth sometimes when Eames is prostrated at his mercy. 

It's joyful though, with their egg tucked safely into the chair Arthur picked up and with the intent, the newness of some kind of commitment to be on the same team. Arthur can't stop laughing into Eames skin. 

Arthur pushes Eames into a sitting position, legs crossed and feet tucked under the opposite thigh. Arthur climbs into his lap, so close that their chests brush, curling his legs to rest behind the small of Eames’ back. His bottom fits well in the cradle of Eames' legs, and Arthur takes a moment to luxuriate in the fit of them, and being able to see and slide against all of Eames, from his sparsely furred chest, to their aligned erections. 

“This is interesting,” Eames says, breath stuttering when Arthur grinds against him. 

“I saw it one time,” Arthur says. 

“The troubles with reenacting your porn fantasies is that they seldom live up to expectations,” Eames says, flicking a nipple and then leaning down to press a kiss to it. 

“You're doing a pretty good job so far,” Arthur says, pressing a kiss to Eames’ jaw and reaching down to wrap his hand around both of their cocks. Arthur rocks against him until he gets tired and stops to take a rest. Eames is sweaty, as well, across his chest and on the side of his face. Arthur cups his jaw to hold him still while he kisses him.

It is not lost on him that he recuperates attached to Eames’ mouth, bestowing tender, sucking kisses while he gets ready for another round of rocking.

After, when they're both completely spent and Arthur has decided that his experience definitely lived up to his expectations and that they'll definitely try that again, Eames traces delicate touches from his elbow to the crease of his wrist, making Arthur’s finger twitch towards his palm. 

“What are you doing,” Arthur says, his eyes closed, the sensation in some strange territory between feeling lovely and ticklish, like Eames is short circuiting his arm. 

“Trying to get my fill,” Eames says, and Arthur can hear him smiling. 

*

In the morning, Arthur wakes up alone, not quite starfished across Eames’ bed, but close. “Eames?” he rasps, just to check if he’s in the vicinity. 

“Polo,” Eames calls cheerfully from outside the room and Arthur follows the sound of his voice.. 

“You slept in,” Eames says. 

Arthur shrugs. “I think I needed it. What are you doing?”

“Well,” Eames says, and moving so that his body is no longer blocking his view. “I was thinking about what Kasia said. It did look kind of similar to other eggs.”

“So your solution was to paint our egg like a … well. Like your library.” 

Eames shakes his head sadly. “I am clearly a talentless hack if this looks like a mosaic to you,” Eames says, his voice trampled under the weight of his own drama. 

The egg is painted in jewel tones and thick black lineart between. On the whole, it looks fairly geometric. “Sorry,” Arthur says. “I’m not terribly good at differentiating art styles, or whatever. It looks neat, though.”

“It’s meant to look like stained glass. I styled it after, well. It hardly matters. I thought you might have slept another hour.” Eames says, looking back at the egg. “I’m not quite finished.” 

There is a lamp sitting over the egg where Eames is still painting. Arthur puts his hand underneath to test it. “When did you buy a heat lamp?”

“The day we got here. Amazon prime,” Eames says, going back to work. “It came yesterday while you were shopping.”

Arthur watches quietly for a while, pulling up a chair. He’s a little mesmerized — Eames’ hands are deft and sure and he never hesitates. He doesn’t point out to Eames that when the paint dries, it will obscure the baby’s silhouette. There will be no third attempt at candling before Arthur leaves. 

“So you couldn’t stand the idea of having an egg that might blend in?”

“Not out of vanity, you twat.”

“What then?” Arthur says, feeling buoyant. His egg is a work of art, jewel-toned and gorgeous, maybe a son but just as likely a daughter. 

“Well. If you were going back to the Cobbs, I had to make sure neither of them absconded.”

Arthur scoffs. “You were just worried I’d let you take it out and come home with the wrong fucking egg.”

Eames sniffs. “Well. Luckily for you, that’s completely impossible now, because I can always spot a forgery. It’s like my eyes have perfect pitch.”

“I’ll try to keep Dom from creating an elaborate forgery on an empty egg in an attempt to steal ours.”

“You’re laughing,” Eames says, faux-affronted, “but I’m just trying to protect us from probable heists. If I hadn’t done this, he’d probably just swap it out with a bag of sand, Indiana Jones style.”

“My eyes may not have  _ perfect pitch, _ ” he says, loading the words with heavy sarcasm, “but I can tell an egg from a bag of sand, asshole.”

“Not during sleep,” Eames teases. “Which is when people of our profession tend to strike.”

*

On wednesday night, Arthur finds himself on top of Eames on his couch, stomachs flush, but both of them still wearing bottoms. Arthur has an arm hooked around their egg. They fall asleep there, and Arthur thinks about how he could get used to this, or already has. 

At midnight, Eames jolts awake beneath Arthur who has moved a little in the night so that his lower body is wedged between Eames’ legs and the back of the couch, and his arms and head are stacked awkwardly on his chest. 

“We shouldn't sleep here,” Eames mumbles, herding them up and reclaiming possession of his egg. Even in the dark, illuminated by only the glow of the TV Arthur is impressed by the picture they make — his gorgeously painted jewel tone egg and the broad sweep of Eames’ thick chest. 

When they situate themselves back into Eames’ bed, Arthur’s brain is awake. He lays in the quiet for a long time, listening to Eames breathe, but he doesn't hear it even out. “Why are you still awake?” he whispers in the dark. 

“I'm not,” Eames whispers back. “Why are you awake?” 

“I'm thinking about what I'm going to do after dreamshare gets properly criminalized,” Arthur whispers back. 

“That's fatal thinking,” Eames says, but doesn't argue with him. The way Arthur sees it, it’s only a matter of time before it becomes public knowledge and there's a witch hunt for people involved. 

“You ever think about when you'll retire?” Arthur asks. For some reason this conversation is still taking place like a secret meeting: in the dark and nearly silent. 

“The Cobb’s didn't. Why are you thinking you have to retire now that you've got a kid?” Eames sounds a little panicked as he says it, like he expects Arthur to demand he hand in his two week’s notice first thing in the morning, send a message through the dreamshare gossip phone tree:  _ Eames isn't taking jobs anymore.  _

“I'm not,” Arthur says. “I'm just doing a lot of planning, for obvious reasons. And it hit me, not for the first time, but more relevant now, that I'm not really qualified to do anything.”

“You're good at everything you put your robot brain to.” 

“ _ Qualified _ ,” Arthur stresses. 

“Oh. Like, you didn't take or A-levels or whatever shit,” Eames says, relaxed now, on the edge of laughing. 

“It's not funny. I've been with the Cobbs since right after high school.” Arthur says. He doesn't talk about it much, but he's been worrying about it almost constantly since Dom found out about his egg. Maybe, a tiny niggling voice at the back of Arthur's brain says, he treated you like a promiscuous teenager because he knows that Arthur, separated from Mal and Dom’s support and connections, has a lot in common with one. It's been making him sick. 

“I'm not laughing at you,” Eames says. “I'm laughing because you're the most resourceful brain in dreamshare, and I just realized that you're worried you might end up in retail. But if it makes you feel any better, I'll whip you up a degree.”

“I do not need you to forge me a diploma,” Arthur says, and even at a whisper he can hear that he sounds mildly offended. 

“Alright,” Eames says, backing off easily. 

He does drift off after that though, feeling strangely calmed by the criminal presence in his bed. Arthur is intimately aware of how capable he is when it comes to shooting or spontaneous planning or putting together hardwood floors. It feels soothing to know that Eames is willing to put these skills to use on Arthur’s behalf. 

Arthur scoots closer to let Eames know he isn't seriously offended, moving his knee until it rests in a gently nudge against Eames’ side. Eames reaches down so that his hand falls on Arthur’s thigh. 

*

“I wanted you to have something,” Eames says on thursday, before he drops Arthur off at the airport. He’s been gone all morning while Arthur stayed in to chat with his newly colorful egg. 

There’s a box in his hands, the right size for photos. Arthur half-expects to find it full of some kind of joke, based on shape alone. Boudoir shots of Eames, or grainy surveillance footage. The other half of him expects something serious, knows it's more likely.

“I already saw all those boxes come to the house, Eames,” Arthur frowns. “You shouldn’t —” 

Eames grins. “What was that?”

With the box open, Arthur looks back at Eames. “What is this for?”

“If you ever need to make an emergency drive to me again,” Eames says, “I want you to be able to get into a car without having to bribe anyone.”

Eames has created a set of documents for him — he flips through to check — social security card, driver’s licence, passport, information mostly accurate — all for the sake of … making him six months older? There is something cold in his throat, like he’s swallowed an ice cube and it had lodged itself there. “Well,” Arthur chokes out, overwhelmed, “this is … ”

“I mean, absolutely take a plane next time,” Eames shrugs, giving Arthur a pass from the thick emotion crowding his lungs. “But I know you’re a stubborn bastard, and you’re going to do what you’re going to do.”

“Next time I'll call first,” Arthur says. He pulls Eames down to kiss his mouth, one hand twisting in his shirt tails. “And we can work it out.”

“Sounds good,” Eames says, foreheads still touching.

*

“Either I'm a member of this family or I'm not, but I'm definitely an adult. A fucking responsible one. And you know that, or you wouldn't have had me running point of your family for five years. if you're going to act like I'm not responsible enough to make my own choices in my relationships or my family planning, we are going to have to redefine our friendship. Which I don't want to do, because I love you and I love Mal and you fucking know I love the kids.But I can't stand for it now that I know some part of you really feels like I'm not competent.”

That's pretty much the speech he plans to make. The uber driver he calls from the airport looks at him in his rear view like he's batshit crazy as he mutters it under his breath.

Arthur pays him little mind.

He keeps planning this speech, his egg in its protective backpack pouch he wears in the front until he gets to their house and turns it around.

Regardless of his nerves, Arthur is excited. It feels like it's been so long since he's been home, and he imagines the kid’s little voices as he walks up the driveway. Both Mal and Dom’s cars are present, but when he lets himself in, they are not immediately apparent. The common spaces, living room, kitchen are empty. He checks the nursery, and James is sleeping. Arthur almost wakes him up in his desire to hold him but manfully resists. Philipa is in her room when he checks there, and she gives a happy shriek to see him.

“I missed you, darling girl,” he says, scooping her up the way he hadn't been able to with James.

“That carry is for  _ babies,  _ Ta Ta,” Pip says, doing a determined wiggle.

“You'll always be a baby to me,” Arthur assures her, kissing her soft, plump baby cheek. “Even when you’re a grown woman.”

She argues with him, “when I am a hundred I'll be too big to be a baby.”

“When you're a hundred, I won't try to pick you up like this,” Arthur relents. “Where's mama and dada?”

Pip gives an exasperated huff. “They're taking a sleep,” she says, crossing her little arms.

“Mommys and daddys need naps too, sometimes,” Arthur says, but dread blooms in his chest like an unpleasant, poisonous flower. 


	15. Chapter 15

Arthur gives one courtesy knock on the Cobb’s bedroom door before he twists it to let himself in, saying “I hope everyone’s decent,” as he crosses the threshold. He’s walked in on them before, as one does when they live long term with a young couple who forgot to stop acting like newlyweds after their first child was born.

Inside, Dom and Mal are plugged up to the PASIV when Arthur gets to their room. Arthur is furious, with the sudden intensity of a struck match. Arthur flees the room, trying to clamp down on the heat of his emotions. 

He doesn’t pull their IVs out himself, but it’s a near thing.

* 

He is reading to Pippa when the two of them come into the nursery. 

“Ta ta is here,” she announces gleefully from his lap. 

“I see that,” Mal says, mouth curling into a smile. Dom flutters anxiously behind her, looking uncharacteristically insecure.

Arthur is an emotional kaleidoscope: glad to see them, angry that they were sleeping with their children unattended, relieved to be in his own home for the first time in weeks, filled with endorphins at being in close proximity of the three children in his life. A dozen things jockey for position in his mouth until his tongue feels like a beehive. He settles on, “Nice of you to join us,” even though some desperate part of him wants to say _I’m so glad you’re here._

*

With Eames’ artwork on their egg, Arthur is able to let Pippa rotate it all on her own. “Take a peek,” he coaches. “On the tippy tippy bottom there should be a dark green square.” Arthur’s heart might burst at seeing her, doing a careful rotation.

Pippa rolled Arthur’s egg with careful fingers, peering from the side to make she it fits the description Arthur gave her. Arthur feels stupidly proud. “If you don’t turn the egg,” he explains, “the baby inside can get stuck to the shell.”

He’s trying to put Pippa down for a nap so he can have a private word with Mal and Dom, but so far she’s been too acutely aware of his presence, excited for him to be home and afraid he might leave if she closes her eyes.

Eventually, she does go down. Unfortunately, as she’s finally drifted off, James is waking up. On the bright side, Pippa is used to James’ persistent noise and can sleep through it now. _And,_ he’s too young to be a real threat to an adult conversation.

“What were you guys doing?” Arthur asks, over James’ baby soft head. He’s not crying so much as just _making noise,_ and it calms something in Arthur to hear it.

“Arthur,” Mal says, “it is not what it looked like. Dom and I —”

“We only go down ten minutes at a time,” Dom says, reading Arthur’s face and knowing he just wants the facts. “We’ve been experimenting in dreamspace. We already knew that if you can get yourself to sleep in a dream, the time spent down there is magnified. It’s got to mean that we’re tapping into purer and purer thought. We’re pretty sure there’s another level, too, where time doesn’t even matter, but we can’t seem to stay asleep that long.”

“Okay,” Arthur says, glaring. “I hardly think any amount of time is appropriate when you have an infant and a four year old that you’re leaving unattended.”

Dom looks like he’s going to argue with Arthur, but instead he says, “Alright,” in that voice, level and sane, that always used to make Arthur feel like he was in good hands.

“Can we put this discussion on the shelf?” Mal asks.

Arthur pokes the knuckle of his index finger into James’ mouth so he can gum at it for a while, preoccupying him from crying, and nods once. “Sure.”

There is a lull. Arthur feels fairly responsible for storming in and being a dark cloud. “I am… don’t get me wrong. I’m really interested in what you’ve learned. But childcare feels like a bit of a sore spot right now.”

“You’re right,” Mal demures. “We should not have been taking little sleeps, with my cabbages in the house. It is only that time multiplies so that we felt safe.”

“How much more could time multiply? Down on the third level, we were already having stability issues and that’s going at, I don’t know, almost ten times.” Arthur says, and Mal’s hand relaxes against her thigh. Arthur realizes it had been bunched in the fabric of her skirt before, like she’d been, what, nervous? That doesn’t sound like her.

“So far as we can tell, it feels limitless. It takes us most of the time we set to get down into that fourth level properly, but then we’ll have hours of free time down below, and wake up before the timer goes off.”

Arthur has been looking at Pippa, stretching out of gawky toddlerhood into a small version of a girl. She has her mother’s delicately shaped face, and Arthur has been thinking she was old enough to move from him reading her books that are basically glorified picture captions to books with stories, real stories, _NIMH_ and _Narnia_ and the _BFG_.

He thinks about that now, about time in Narnia. Mal looks like someone who’s hand Turkish Delight.

“I’ll start dinner,” he says.

It feels that might be it, like they might land on a tenuous peace until Mal says, “I’ve also figured out the most wonderful way to keep track of reality.”

Arthur feels his fork clatter to the table. “We’ve never not been able to tell before. Is that a concern you have?”

“She’s just taking precautions, Arthur,” Dom says. _Remember, Arthur, you like precautions,_ his eyes say, like he just doesn’t know who Arthur is anymore.

“Alright,” Arthur says. “Precautions.”

*

It isn’t long before the children are in bed, or rather, Pippa is tucked into Mal and Dom’s bed with her Kindle fire, watching Peppa Pig, which is her new favorite, and James is held against Dom’s chest, with one dangling arm.

Arthur doesn’t know what comes next. Mal is holding Arthur’s egg. “He did a magnificent job here.”

“Isn’t it? I had a heart attack first thing, but then I found out he’d been researching for days about a paint that would still allow gas exchange for the egg.”

“Thoughtful,” Mal says, talking close to Arthur’s egg in the way Arthur has spoken to hers, many times in the past few years.

“He is,” Arthur agrees. He is careful to meet Dom’s eyes. Not a challenge, but he wants it to be clear that he is not retreating, either.

Dominic opens his mouth, and Arthur thinks that with all the love between them, it would be a shame if he had to hit him now. “That’s pretty on-the-nose as far as love declarations from art thieves go.”

*

Arthur and Mal use the Cobb’s PASIV while Dom watches the children, and then Mal and Dom switch shifts when they come back for air. Which is how it should be, how it always was before.

“I feel fairly confident letting you know that there’s no way that place is safe to spend any time in,” Arthur informs them, after he’s gone under with both of them. He twists his torso, one palm on his own hip to help the stretch. It feels like he’s spent days down there, and he shakes out his joints before reaching for his egg. “That was mind boggling.” He’d gone own with each of them for what felt like a day, for sure, and woke up with Mal still standing in the same spot.

Mal shows him her totem, too. “In my dream, it keep spinning.” She demonstrates for Arthur.

“I’ve seen it now, and so has Dom. If either of us wanted to make you think you were in reality in a dream, we might be able to will it to fall,” Arthur worries. “The idea is interesting, but I think you’d definitely need to decide on a quality that only you knew, and keep it to yourself.”

“If you or Dominic wanted to trick me into a dream,” Mal says blithely, “there is probably good reason.”

“Mal, Arthur’s onto something. Maybe a good totem should be potentially heavy,” Dom says, patting himself down for a pen he doubtless has somewhere on his person.

Arthur, more or less reflexively, finds him a leaf of paper.

*

Arthur does want to know about the fourth layer of dreaming. He does want to see his little family. Three is a new number for him, but feels doable, so he lets the Cobbs know that they’ll have the house to themselves before he leaves with both of their children and his own egg. He puts them in the car, and it’s the first time he’s ever had three small children in his back seat. It’s an amusing sight.

He subtly pumps Pippa for information while they’re out, like he’s gossiping with an old friend.

Pippa is not aware, for what it’s worth, of many incidences where Dom and Mal used the PASIV while she and her brother were awake, although he doesn’t ask it like that. She’s hardly aware of what he and her parents do.

She does know a rudimentary explanation of how James’ hearing aide is going to work, when he gets one next week. ( _“_ The sounds are _little_ for him, because he’s a baby, but his fake ear is going to make the sounds _big,”_ she explains, and Arthur has a joyful opportunity to be a little more specific about sound vibration with her.)

At the park, someone comments that Arthur has “quite a family” for his age, with a dubious look between a loudly babbling James and his painted egg, and Arthur gives her a blinding smile. “You know young people,” he says, with an aggressive shrug. “Can’t be fussed to remember birth control,” and goes back to having a rather wonderful day with his two favorite children and his egg.

*

Arthur belongs in two places now. He’s got his family here, and his egg, and Mal and Dom and Eames. Arthur checks flights while he’s out. Five hours between his two homes. Five hours isn’t very long, in the grand scheme of things.

When he comes home, he wants to go under in shifts again, so they can discuss that fourth level, difficult to get into with any measure of reliability but seemingly almost infinite when it can be accomplished.

“It’s like you can have multiple architects down here,” Arthur muses, amazed at the fact that he and Mal can both change the scenery in the same dream. Arthur can pick out projections that belong to both of them — a young girl that shows up in Mal’s head with some regularity, his own aging mother sitting at a table having a salad, Mal’s childhood hero, Gregory Peck buying a newspaper.

“It is like the moon,” Mal says, agreeing, “no one owns it.”

“There is an American flag on the moon,” Arthur points out.

“And it was a very slimy thing to do,” Mal says, serene.

“So time hardly exists. And all dreamers bring in their projections and can alter the terrain. No wonder you guys have been coming down here, even when...”

“We will not,” Mal assures him. “Not without someone to watch my cabbages.”

“Good,” Arthur says, not sure if he believes her wholeheartedly, but believing _in_ her. “I wanted to talk to you about someone to watch your cabbages. Because you know I love your, our cabbages, but I think right now I’m going to stay with Eames, until my own cabbage is born.”

Mal does not make any cooing noises, or attempt to guilt him, both of which Arthur is grateful for. “You know you will be welcome in my house, always,” she says.

“I do know that,” He says, wrapping her in his arms and kissing the top of her head. In her heels, they are of a height, but outside of them she still fits comfortably like this. “Are you going to be mad at me if I leave?”

“Non, sweet. Dom and I love you, but you do not belong to us. You should have everything.”

“What if the kids miss me? What if I come back and they don’t really know me?”

Mal pushes him away until he is at arm’s length, her fingers gripping his biceps. “You will never stay away from your family long enough for them to forget you, my darling boy.”

It is different, telling Dom. Mal stays home with her own two children and Arthur takes him out, just the two of them and his egg, still delicately painted.

“I was an ass,”  Dom says, after the third Stella his been delivered.

“You said that, on the phone.” Arthur reminds him, blushing faintly. It’s been so long since he had a chance to relax, longer still since he and Dom have been out together, no anger between them.

“Yeah, but that was when I just wanted you to come back. I hadn’t really thought about _why_ I was an ass.” Dom said, putting the longneck bottle to his temple.

“Oh yeah?” Arthur’s not sure when Dom became a lightweight, but he’s amused just the same.

“Yeah,” he says. “And like. You were right the whole time. I was a jerk because I was blindsided and I hate not to know first. And you’re going to be a good dad. Fuck it, you already are.”

Arthur playfully covers his egg with two hands, as he would over Pip’s ears.

“Oh, shit, sorry. _Sorry!_ ” he says, eyes getting a little more crazy with his snowballing mistakes.

Arthur laughs. “It’s okay, Dom. I learned from the best.”

*

Arthur goes to sleep that night in a bed Mal and Dom bought him at eighteen, six years ago, almost seven now. He needed them then, and loves them still, but he feel a frisson of nervous energy in knowing that it is no longer the only place that makes sense for him.

*

Five hours after Arthur gets on a plane in one place, he walks out of another. It is the small miracle of human invention.

Eames isn’t home when Arthur gets there, but Eames had given him a key for that very reason, and when Eames finally does come home, he climbs into his own bed, exhausted. Arthur jots sharply awake. He hadn’t meant to nap but exhaustion from his travel and being up all night with James on the night before had taken their toll.

“Arthur,” Eames rumbles, sounding delighted, but also weary.

“Eames,” Arthur acknowledges, and then lets him fall asleep.

Or, he plans to. Roughly twenty minutes after Eames dozes off, he pushes himself up, reaches out and turns on his bedside lamp. Takes the egg from Arthur’s lap.

That last one makes Arthur let out a protesting noise.

“Nope,” Eames says. “You absconded with my son. I am going to hold him now. Did clammy papa get you all cold, son?”

Arthur rolls his eyes. But now that Eames is up, he seems to be completely awake and imbued with a fresh enthusiasm for life. He and Eames did text a bit during his trip, but now he wants to know _how_ it went and _how_ Arthur is and then when Arthur doesn’t answer quickly enough he just chatters at their egg.

Now that he’s awake though, he does have some things he wants to talk about. Some questions he has for Eames, things he wants to know before their child is born.

He starts easy, with _what do you want it to call you?_ and _do you have any questionable medical history I should know about?_ and eventually moves on to Eames’ actual preferences in child-rearing.

“What do you think about school?”

“They can go if they … want to?” Eames says, like it’s a guess. At Arthur’s dark look, he rescinds. “I mean. I’m sure you have a perfectly lovely one all picked out and paid for in some kind of trust.”

Arthur huffs, because that’s an answer pattern he’s heard four out of five of his last questions. “Not having opinions is no way to raise a child, Eames.”

“Whoever gave you that advice didn’t have a co-parent as terrifyingly thorough as you,” Eames says.

“If a couple thinks they never fight, that means one of them is always getting their way,” Arthur points out.

“Those rules don’t apply to us. That’s about people who don’t think they fight because one of them always silently comprises. I’m very obviously giving in because I know there are things you doubtless have plans and backup plans for.”

Arthur drums on his egg with his knuckles. “You’re copping out,” Arthur tells him.

“And you’re going through a book called, what, one hundred things to ask your mate before your egg hatches?”

He’s not far off. Arthur schools his face in an attempt not to give anything away. “There has to be something that’s important to you. At least one parenting opinion.”

Eames falls still almost immediately, all restless hands and roving eyes stopped in their tracks. “Sure,” Eames says.

“Well,” Arthur prompts, rolling his eyes.

Eames manhandles Arthur a bit, getting his down on his back, and Arthur obliges, resting his egg on his own sternum as Eames arranges himself next to him, shoulder to shoulder and they’re both looking at the ceiling. “I don’t like powertools.”

Arthur shoves his tongue between his molars in a quick movement against feeling suddenly cold, like his teeth might chatter otherwards. Eames does a lot of renovation projects. Arthur already has a knot in his stomach.

“I don’t really like the sounds of them. I like getting a job done quickly. I use them, and it’s more or less recaimatory.”

“Do you want to tell me about him?” Arthur asks, because he and Eames are starting a family together; they’ve probably moved past the time where Arthur should pretend like he doesn’t suspect with a certainty that verges on _knowing_ that Eames is about to talk about his father.

“Not really,” Eames says. Arthur turns his head to look at him, his ear folding uncomfortably underneath him when he does.

“Alright,” Arthur says, not really saying it out loud so much as mouthing it.

“I think a boy should have a dog. Does that count as a parenting opinion?”

Arthur wrinkles his nose, but undermines that by grabbing Eames’ hand. “Yeah,” he says. “We’ll have to fight about that at a later time.”

“I am looking forward to it,” Eames says, and Arthur thinks that might be the end of it, that he should put the egg in its warmer and let himself drift off to sleep, but then Eames says, in a distant voice: “When I was a boy, no one ever hit me.”

“Okay,” Arthur says, not wanting to spook him. His eyes have long-adjusted to the dark of the room, and he traces the ceiling popcorn to give himself to do while Eames pauses, awkwardly.

“But I was always afraid.”

 _Afraid_ isn’t the word that springs to mind when you look at him, with his knotted muscles and the untouchable air of money so old he’s forgotten about it, and the desperate spending of _also_ having money so new he can’t bring himself to care as it slips through his fingers. “What were you afraid of?”

Arthur can feel Eames shift beside him. “My father kept me terrified.”

“Intentional?” Arthur checks.

Eames makes a noise, like he’s processing the question. “Well. I think he had a pretty good handle on his impulse control. And he wasn’t a drinker. I suppose I would say yes?”

Arthur wants to ask another question, like, _what did he do?_ because he wants, badly, to know. Instead, he presses their egg into Eames’ hands. Eames thanks him.

“I don’t want our children to be afraid.”

“We only have one child.”

“And he shouldn’t be afraid.”

“All children are afraid of something, Eames.”

Eames snorts besides him. “You don’t have to play dumb, Arthur. I know that you’ve got family fuckups, too. I never planned on parenting because I worried I would make a mess of it, and it wouldn’t even be intentional, like mine, it would just be me, failing at being a dad.”

Arthur doesn’t have a father, not really, although his mother is remarried now and Arthur likes her husband well enough. “When I became the Cobb’s eggwarmer, I didn’t know I’d be any good at it. I was just looking for a job and a place to live all at once.”

“You took to it almost immediately,” Eames argues.

“It’s easy when they’re an egg. A temperature goal, and to keep track of them. One sided conversations. It let me get used to the _idea_ of Pip before there was an _actual_ Pip. Then there was a steep learning curve.”

Eames is thoughtfully quiet. Arthur suspects that his mind has made the circular revolution back to his own father even before he says anything. “My dad used to yell, a lot. He expected a lot from me, and he was very destructive. He never hit me, but he’d leave me in the eye of the storm, so to speak. Glasses, shelving, appliances. An aquarium, once. Let an entire saltwater fish tank drain into the formal dining room before he very calmly called someone to get the water off the hardwood before it warped.”

Arthur reached down blindly, groping for Eames’ hand in the dark, but only found his thigh. He gave it a squeeze.

“He was always fixing things he’d broken, and a lot of times I’d be getting lectured during angry home repair time. My father was very handy.”

Arthur isn’t sure what to say, so he says nothing. Eames had seen him on that first job, new as he was with Mal and Dom, half-family and half-employee. Eames had said, _I want one._

In the quiet that follows, Arthur curls into Eames, tracing his fingertips into Eames’ bare shoulder, lost in this own thoughts. In that much quiet and dark, simply owning a body is almost a noisy experience. Arthur isn’t sure he’d ever noticed. He feels strange being privy to it, the clockwork mechanism of Eames’ respiration and pulse and stomach. Everything he could say feels trite, so instead he traces the skin of his neck down to his shoulder to find Eames’ hand, and traces that too, from his wrist to his fingernails, and then past, to the painted enamel of his egg beneath.

“He’ll only be afraid of the normal things,” Arthur promises, finally. It seems like something in his power to say. Eames makes subtle shifts to accommodate Arthur while he encroaches into his space. “I won’t — make him afraid.”

Eames moves his arm, gets it around Arthur’s neck and presses his lips to his temple. “Of all the things I worry about, you being anything like my father isn’t one of them.”

“What do you worry about?” Arthur wants to know.

“Prison,” Eames rattles off. “Arachnids I know to be poisonous. Having to read out loud when I feel rushed.”

Arthur digs his chin into Eames’ neck, making him yelp.

“Me,” he says. “Me being like him.”

Arthur has a ridiculous thought, the kind you only get on the edge of sleep, and in a matter of moments he’s planned a hypothetical dreamshare, designing a small theater with a horror movie marathon, the visual of the poster he’d place in front, the font he’d use to write _your worst nightmare,_ and then he’d systematically find a way to shut down the films Eames populated them with. Burn down the theater. Something.

 _I want to kill his demons_ , Arthur thinks, but he’s hardly surprised by any revelations he has about Eames now. “You’ve already dodged that bullet,” Arthur whispers. Eames doesn’t saw anything, but he can feel his gratitude in his grip which doesn’t loosen until he falls asleep.  


	16. Chapter 16

In the morning, Eames is on his side, one arm pillowed under his head, and the other is idle flicking across the screen of his tablet. He’s not at the right angle for Arthur to peek, but when he cranes his neck, Eames turns it towards him. 

“Did you know that we can use his shell when he’s done with it to make exfoliator?”

“We are doing no such thing,” Arthur frowns, not awake enough for this. 

“We wouldn’t use it, of course,” Eames agrees, “but we could _sell_ it.” 

“We are not selling our child’s egg.”

“Last night it was  _have some parenting ideas, Eames,_ ” he says, doing an admittedly pretty good recreation of Arthur’s voice. “Now it’s all, _don't sell our son's unused eggshells._ ”

Arthur presses his face into the pillow. “You’re too hot to be this inane,” he groans. 

“I am _exactly_ the right amount of hot to be this inane,” Eames corrects him, and Arthur can feel him scramble up to his knees, swinging one over to sit on Arthur’s backside. “How would people listen to me otherwise?”

“You great lump,” Arthur protests, pushing himself up onto his elbows in a half-hearted attempt to dislodge him, until Eames leans over and presses his thumbs into Arthur’s shoulders. Arthur lets himself go back down. He’s not wrong, anyways. He’s a bit of a knockout. 

“Now darling,” he says, giving him an amature but enthusiastic massage, “I wanted to know if you’d considered my offer to give you some credentials. Or if it is a lifetime of crime for you.” 

Arthur, mid massage, can feel himself tensing. “Eames, what the fuck. We talked about this.”

“Oh, good,” he says. “A life of crime it is. In that case, I had an offer come across my desk and I wanted to know if you thought it would be any fun. It’s for you, actually. I felt a bit like your pimp receiving it.”

From where Arthur is sprawled across Eames’ bed, he can see their jewel-toned egg in the bedside warmer he’d set up before he left Eames the last time. Eames must have got up in the night to tuck it in. It makes Arthur feel indulgent. “Tell me about it.”

“Alright, so Kasia isn’t finished with her manuscript yet, and she hasn’t brought in any other writers yet for a dreamshare based therapeutic approach to plot holes, which I remain steadfastly hopeful for, but she _has_ brought me a man in her workshop group who looked through your narrative notes. He’s writing an intense family saga, and he says your read for chronologicals was much better than his editors.” 

Arthur is very still. “You’re serious.”

Eames is still trailing his hands down his body, firm and thorough. “Of course I am. At what point did you think I was fucking with you?”

“The beginning of this conversation?” Arthur says, turning his head so that the side of his face finds a fresh, cool part of his pillow to rest on. Eames makes an insulted noise. “Balance of probabilities,” he says. 

Eames hands don’t stop moving. Arthur is filled with a fresh thought, circling back to the point: he could be someone’s editor. Or, well. A consulting reader, he thinks, more than a little amused at the absurdity of his trajectory, as someone virtually unqualified to do anything of the sort, 

*

The paint the baby’s room yellow. When this comes up in conversation later, Eames seems appalled that Arthur would refer to the walls so reductively.

“I mean,” Arthur says with a helpless shrug. 

“When you say that, people are picturing a  _primary eyesore._ ” Eames explains. 

“Heaven forbid.” Arthur says. He’s being stubborn a bit, because they’d agreed on yellow and Eames had undergone an elaborate _project_ featuring yellow-ochre and buttercream. He reaches out to pat Eames’ bicep placatingly. “It's lovely. It looks great.”

Here are things Arthur know he likes: French toast and Gruyere cheese, the way Mal’s accent is some kind of Midas touch, changing every thought she has into some kind of offhand brilliance, the clean texture of a new trade paperback with a matte cover. And, well, the flex of Eames’ arms under his fingertips.  

Interest sparks in him, and Eames must see it because he licks his bottom lip and his voice drops an octave. “No naughty thoughts in the my son’s nursery,” Eames teases, and if he thought that was going to make Arthur stand down, he was  _dead wrong_ because it turns out Arthur also has a thing for Eames saying  _my son._

Arthur straps his egg into the rocking warmer and pulls Eames in by the curling neck of his threadbare t-shirt. Eames comes to him easily, hands coming to land on his hips, broad and a little calloused. “None?” he clarifies, teasing. 

“Well. Maybe we can start that rule later.”

With an egg about to hatch and armed with the past experience of how your life can come to pause with a newborn in the house (during the first few weeks of James’ infancy, Arthur accidentally grew out a patchy beard, to his great shame) Arthur is filled with the awareness that there infrequently be a time for lazy afternoon sex in the coming months. 

So he indulges now: the sun is slanting in, warm and butter colored. Eames’ has Arthur’s favorite length of his near-permanent stubble and drags it against the planes of his face and chest. 

Arthur eases into the rocking rhythm between them, Eames’ shirt still on, and laughing at the almost childish way Eames sing-songs, “Condoms for everyone!”

He slows them down when Eames picks up the pace, dragging him back to a slow undulating, pinning him on his back by pressing his hand down on his shoulder, Arthur’s orgasm building quietly before crashing over him, and then afterwards, Eames’. 

Arthur feels so happy looking at him after, when he’s reclined on his back, hands tucked behind his head, cock softening against his hip, still in its condom. It’s not a wild happiness, not exhilarating and terrifying like it was in Paris, but a happiness that feels half-tamed, that feels like artwork-filled libraries and the quiet that comes with candling in the dark.

“Hey there,” Arthur says. “This is no time to get lazy. There’s still work to be done.”

Eames blinks up at him, clearly beginning to doze again even as he jolts up. “There is work to be done after the napping, surely.” 

“No dice,” Arthur says, giving Eames a gleeful shove. “Up up up. Your life as a well-rested man is over.”

*

Of course, at some point they have that conversation, and Arthur asks Eames if he uses birth control. “I stop ovulation,” he explains. “I’ve never been crazy about it. What about you?”

Arthur shakes his head. “I don’t like being on it. I have been before. In high school I was, but I always feel really… disconnected with my body, I guess? I just like it better when I cycle through. And I’ve never had any problems with my ovulation cycle.” 

“Alright,” Eames says, capping off the conversation like he doesn’t want to pry, and repeating what seems to have become his motto. “Condoms for everyone.”

*

By the time shit hits the fan with the Cobbs, Arthur is in the final stage of his incubation, waiting helplessly by his egg for those first tremors. Eames is working on a project in his study, close enough to be present if Arthur calls, but far enough that Arthur won’t snap at him for making distracting noise. 

Arthur is a home-grown hobbyist hacker. It’s a skill he started developing when he started working with the Cobbs, when he realized that information is sometimes more easily accessed with less psychological warfare and more poking around on the internet. When Mal stops responding to his texts messages one weekend and Arthur is too close to hatching to risk leaving his prepared nest, it doesn’t take him long to start running her name through some databases on a hunch. 

“Oh, Mal,” he mutters, phone pinned between his face and his shoulder while he types with both hands. He’s muttering to himself, an almost silent insistence that Dom  _pick up the fucking phone,_ alarm bells ringing all the while for his babies.

“Your wife is doctor shopping right now,” he says, when he finally does, his heart a stone in his chest. 

“I — what? Arthur, this isn’t a great time, honestly —” 

“No shit,” Arthur bites out, and suddenly Eames is in the doorway, crossing the room to stand behind Arthur’s chair. Arthur leans back gratefully into the solid heat of him. Arthur can feel the metal of Eames’ belt buckle through the linen of his shirt. 

“Arthur, to be honest, she’s been acting a little unhinged this week, and I need to make sure she’s okay right now,” Dom tells him, and Arthur goes to interrupt him, but he can practically _hear_ Dom reign himself in. “Tell me what you’re thinking.”

“I’m just looking through these files, and she’s been to three psychiatrists this week, all initial visits, and all of them with no presenting symptoms. There’s literally nothing here. They’ve made her take the Back’s depression scale, asked her about hallucinations, anxiety, she’s got nothing going on.”

He can hear Dom over the line, breathing out through his teeth. “You were right when you mentioned that we hadn’t had to deal with distinguishing reality from a dream before. It’s been hell, maybe for six weeks now.”

“She can’t tell?”

Arthur can feel the core of Eames go rigid, and wonders how well he can hear both sides of the conversation.

“The last time we went under,” Dom explains, and it sounds like something is being ripped from him, like he’s spitting out his own teeth, “we stayed too long. We got into that fourth level down.”

“I can’t leave,” Arthur says. It hurts to say it, he hates himself even as it comes out, but his egg with its raggedy paint. “I’m going to be a father, again. Before the week is up. We can’t travel right now.” 

Eames grips his shoulder, and Arthur reaches up to wrap a hand around his wrist, in support and thanks for grounding him.

“Of course not,” Dom says. “But I’m at the end of my rope, so if you’ve got some kind of contingency plan, I’d love to hear it.”

“Get Miles,” he says, because if it’s that bad, he should have already been there. “Get Anatole. Keep someone with her. You need to broach the subject of flying the kids out to me, or send them to Marie. I can hire you a transporter.”

“Alright,” Dom says on the other end. “I’ll make sure she’s not alone.”

“And Dom?” he says, one last thing. It hurts him to say it, but the truth of it lodges itself in his throat and refuses to be swallowed down. “I don’t think it should be you. I’m looking at these contact notes, and I think she’s making a case. Or — that she’s maybe trying to set you up.”


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Everyone in this fandom knows I've been _out of commission_ flat on my but because I've been trying to finish up practicum hours before graduation. I'm not quite done (and I got an extention, so as long as I get those last 70 hrs before Jan3, we're golden!!!!) but I wanted to stop dragging y'all along. Sorry for the wait, everyone! I hope to wrap this up soon!!!
> 
> Also, my girl M is sick, so I hope this cheers her up a bit.

Arthur’s choices sprawl out before him in several directions. His family in California, fragile right now, could use someone to stabilize them. His babies could, definitely. Dom doesn’t want to send them to Arthur, which is his preference, because he believes that their presence is the only thing keeping Mal wavering when she insists that none of this is real. 

“Are you willing to bet their lives on that, Mal?” Dom had said. He’d sounded shaken when he retold the story to Arthur. Neither of them can believe it’s come to this; having Marie and Miles in the house is the next best thing, but some part of Arthur thinks that his family shouldn’t have the  _ next  _ best thing.

The other half of Arthur knows that  _ family  _ is a term in flux, and he, well, two other members of his family are  _ right here  _ in front of him. 

“Let me distract you,” Eames says. 

Their egg is on the brink of hatching. 

“ _ The brink  _ is a bit hysterical, I think,” Eames says. His voice is a low rumble, friendly and filthy at once, and Arthur stops protesting. He’s got their child, still painted like the stained glass at the oldest cathedral in Barcelona (Eames’ eyebrows had both climbed when Arthur had casually dropped that knowledge, which was ridiculous. Arthur’s  _ literal, unsubtle  _ top two talents are research and child-rearing.) 

He clicks the monitor and the warmer on and lets Eames lead him to bed, slow and sultry, and he’s not wrong: even highway pileup of anxiety he has about everyone else can be sidestepped for a few minutes to sink into the luxurious expanse of Eames. 

Eames palms his shoulder, scraping calloused thumbs against Arthur’s collarbone in perfect synchronization until he is supine before him. “Oh,” he says, feeling as if the whole world is a surprise again, like he’d been unaware of all the good things and had unwrapped them, fresh. 

Arthur turns him over, hovers over him. “Thanks,” he tells him, breathless and earnest, before lowering himself to kiss Eames thoroughly, undulating his hips so that he can feel the friction of both of them, hard beneath their respective underwear. 

“The pleasure is all mine,” Eames tells him, his fingertips in Arthur’s waistband, but delving no further, resting like points of heat and light. Arthur is so aware of them, of himself, of Eames in the afternoon light, in a bed that they share now, more or less full time. 

By the time they’ve divested themselves of every scrap of clothing, Arthur is sweaty and a little dazed, his whole world narrowed to their bedroom, humid and quiet. Eames comes first, messy between them and they don’t stop kissing while he twitches out against both of their stomachs, and then Arthur, behind, one hand supporting himself on Eames’ pillow and the other tight at his shoulder. 

After, Arthur nestles with his face against the crescent shape dents his fingernails made on Eames’ skin.  “Sorry,” Arthur says, pressing his mouth against them, briefly. 

“Don’t be,” Eames laughs. “You’re welcome to give me sex injuries anytime.”

Arthur dozes in close for a few minutes until he gets too warm, moving away onto a cooler patch of sheets, keeping one hand at Eames’ elbow while he kicks out, stretching his thighs, sore in the best of ways. Their bed — Eames’ bed that Arthur has colonized — is a true luxury, spacious and full of textiles that Arthur loves the feel of. 

He doesn’t fall asleep there, but he does unspool blissfully beside Eames in an oasis of peace he hadn’t expected to feel, with everything else going on. 

*

Last year, before James hatched, Arthur took a holiday to France with the Cobbs. They had seen Mal’s brother, who was wearing his hair long at the time, and Arthur had been pleased to note that he had finally gotten over his youthful crush on him. 

He’d read Michael Chabon on the beach while Mal had sat with Philipa on the edge of the tide’s reach, his face warm with what was sure to be a hideous sunburn, and Dom had poured him a glass of wine while he outlined a thought he had about the way self-deception would manifest in the dreamspace, one hand resting gently on the curve of his egg. 

Even the memory of it feels warm, now. He’d looked at their little family — Mal and Dom’s, but a little bit his, too — and thought about how he hadn’t known what that would mean to him, and below that contentment a spiderweb-thin shiver of jealousy that they could look at each other from across the way and know what the other was thinking, how Dom could make Mal laugh without trying. 

He thinks of it now and has a sour taste in his mouth. 

*

Shortly after he came back from the Cobb’s the last time, having finally gathered a semblance of peace instead of the civil unrest he’d been carrying around for weeks, he’d found a scrap of paper among the sprawled detritus of Eames’ things. He would loosely define it as a list, because it contains several items, but it’s hardly tidy.  _ Kent _ , it says,  _ Halifax _ . The list goes on at ridiculous angles, and Arthur thinks it might be cities of some importance to Eames until he reaches that last one:  _ Arthur.  _

_ Don’t be ridiculous,  _ he texts Eames.  _ We’re not naming the baby after anyone that already exists. It’s a dumb convention.  _

Eames texts back a ridiculous list, one name per text, flooding his phone.  _ Samson. Elbert. Paisley.  _ He’s clearly just getting started. Arthur lets them roll in for a while. 

_ Fucking Charles,  _ Arthur texts back, so Eames will get the full weird sensation of the suggestion that their unborn would be named after him. It’s probably worse for Eames, actually, half-divorced from his own birth certificate.

_ I don’t think ur allowed to put invective on the birth cert,  _ Eames returns mildly, but Arthur knows he’s received the message when he doesn’t send him anymore nonsense.

*

“She’s had a string of good days,” Dom says, over the phone. “I think your conversation the other day really helped.” 

“How good?” Arthur hedges, reluctant but hopeful, always. 

“Well. She hasn’t told me the children aren’t real in a few days,” Dom says, rueful, and Arthur is stricken by the fact that they’ve made it to this point, where that feels like a  _ good day.  _ He wants Mal healthy again, needs it, feels like he can’t sleep until he has her back, calm and beautiful and a little unhinged by the tantalizing mystique of research to be done. 

“You know it’s our anniversary tomorrow,” Dom goes on. “She’s even been planning something for us.” 

“Oh.” Arthur says. “Sorry. Life has been a little upside-down for me. I totally — normally I’d be babysitting for you tonight.”

“We’ve got Marie in the guest room,” Dom supplies. “Don’t feel — of course I’d love you here, but you’re about to be a father. You’ve got your own stuff to deal with.”

Arthur almost manages a smile. “I’ve been feeling tremors all week,” he confides. “It’s going to be, yeah, soon. By the end of the week, I’m sure. But — what is Mal planning for you?”

“Nothing unusual,” Dom says. “We’re going to that hotel we spent our first anniversary in. I’m going to go meet her there.”

“Dom —” Arthur says, unease growing. “Does that seem like a good idea to you?”

Arthur wants some precautions. 

*

Thursday morning he paces most of the day, feeling restless in his skin in agitation over the fact that Mal has been detained. Fucking baker acted, because with the way she’d plotted to make it look like Dom had murdered her in cold blood on their anniversary. 

Arthur has been trying not to vomit. 

“You should have a sick,” Eames says. His thumb is between Arthur’s shoulder blades and when it had first landed there, Arthur had almost waved him off, feeling too tense to be touched, but then Eames remains where he is, with that single point of contact without overwhelming him. 

“I can actually only deal with baby vomit,” Arthur admits. “I can’t see my own or it’ll make me gag. It’s a vicious cycle.”

“Do we need to make a house rule?” Eames asks dubiously. “That Arthur only deals with infant vomit?” 

Arthur lets out a single amused huff, touching his forehead. “Thank you, but we’re just goint to circumvent the need.”

“Every time, for the rest of your life?” 

Arthur’s chest goes tight, like a single contraction, his whole torso jumping up. “Maybe I’ll grow out of it,” he says, sidestepping the fact that Eames has just said the actual words  _ for the rest of your life  _ in the context of being willing to deal with Arthur’s vomit during it. 

By the time his egg gives that first telltale shake, Arthur’s stomach has calmed a little, and they’ve both relocated to Eames’ study. 

His first glimpse of Eames a s a father is a thing of beauty, as Eames does not hesitate to pick up their slimy son, careful of his scrabbling claws. Eames doesn’t even gloat, he just beams down at him: “Hello lovely,” he says, and angles his shoulder so that Arthur can put his chin there. Eames put his nose in their child’s damp hair, plastered flat, like he doesn’t even notice. 

Arthur can barely contain himself. He and Eames exchange half sentences back and forth —  _ he’s just — I know — and he has — oh god claws, bud — careful with his hands because — I know, I know.  _

When Arthur has him in his arms, he checks everything one accounts for, and the moment is just as sweetly overwhelming when his son’s small hand grasps reflexively as it was the last two times. 

Their child has a squashed face. “Look at him,” Eames cooes. “He’s already annoyed. He’s the tits. Well done, Arthur.” 

“You can’t call our son  _ the tits, _ ” Arthur says, but he’s grinning. He can’t seem to stop.

“Well, you won’t let me call him Halifax, so what’s a man to do?” Eames grouses. 

“Is that really one of your top contenders?” Arthur wants to know. He has a suspicion — he is unaware of any time in Eames’ adulthood where he’s spent time, unlike some of the other cities on the list, places he and Eames have worked on jobs together, places that Eames feel in love with while chasing them for art heists. 

Eames shrugs. “Yes. I couldn’t tell you why.”

Arthur holds his son close, having wrangled him into a towel swaddle several minutes before. Eames wasn’t wrong. He has serious little eyes and has inherited at one day old Eames’ mobile, folding forehead. 

It wasn’t a terrible name. It had some history and substance and coastline. Eames could have set his sights on worse: he’d never want his son to be landlocked. “I mostly worry that if I let you call him Halifax, people will call him Hal.”

“What’s wrong with Hal?”

“Well. Besides the fact that it makes him sound about ninety, it’s a bit of a family name.”

As Arthur says that, a little grudgingly, Eames face goes blandly pleasant in a way that immediately raises Arthur’s suspicions. “You already knew, you fucker.” At the word  _ fucker,  _ Arthur’s voice lost sound, and he mouthed it instead. “Why hide the name in there unless you…”

Eames manfully ignored Arthur in favor of their son. “Look at his wee claws,” Eames cooed, with a dopey grin. 

“Oh my  _ god,  _ you want his last name.”

Eames almost physically recoiled. “Oh no. You’ve got it all wrong, love.” 

Arthur peered at Eames, suddenly uncomfortable and implying that he wanted his son — their son — to carry Arthur’s family on both obvious sides. Arthur could have pressed. Instead, he took Eames’ hand, and said simply: “alright.”

*

Eames has a book in his study called  _ Communicating With Your Hard of Hearing Child.  _ Seeing it made Arthur’s heart pang, hard. Arthur owned a very similar book that he’d read twice when he was first learning about James’ hearing loss, which was already considerable. He had about a dozen others, too, but much of his book collection hadn’t made his trip back. A lot of his stuff hadn’t — he didn’t want Phillipa to think he was gone forever. She was used to absences from all of them, but none of them had ever moved out on her. 

Arthur made a video call the first night to let her meet the new baby. 

“Pip-flip,” Arthur said, angling the phone just so. Eames was in the rocker with the baby, inventing a song as he went about the  _ littlest wriggler in the house.  _

“Another baby?” Phillipa asked dubiously, as if the adults in her life had sired dozens of children, and she was getting tired of it. 

“Yes, lovely.” Arthur smiled, exhausted. “You remember when I was home last and I had that egg? He’s hatched now.”

“He’s a little boy? Like baby loud?”

“Well,” Arthur equivocated. It might be a little early to explain the nuance of gender binary to her, but then again, he never really wanted to have explain something to her that would contradict something else he’d said. He was far too attached to his credibility. Eames caught his eye, smirking, and Arthur knew he was thinking the same thing. “His body is  _ probably  _ a little boy’s body, but when he gets older, he can tell us if he thinks we got it wrong.” 

Eames tilts his head thoughtfully, nodding a little. 

Arthur steered the conversation soon to how she and her brother were doing, if they were enjoying their visit with their grandparents. (They are. Sort of. Phillipa has headphones, she is quick to point out. Daddy did not, however, pack any of her favorite skirts. Arthur is already trying to figure out how to get her some of them without distracting Dom from the task at hand, which is using his substantial charisma to convince Mal that she is, indeed, awake.)

*

On the third night of Halifax’s existence outside of his shell, Arthur woke up alone. After some exploration, he found Eames in the nursery, pacing with Halifax.

“Come on fussbucket,” Eames is saying, when Arthur peers through the doorway. There’s a bottle on the warmer.

“Want me to get it?” Arthur says, not an empty offer, but one he knows Eames won’t take him up on. Eames waves him off, like Arthur knew he would. Arthur scrolls through his phone instead, checking for updates. There is nothing new except the same update Dom texts him every six or eight hours to let him know that nothing has gone cataclysmically wrong yet. It says something about the month that this does actually come as a relief.

Eames is not looking at him when he says, “When is it going to be safe to travel with him?”

Arthur makes an inarticulate noise before he gets himself sorted. “What did you have in mind?”

He still doesn’t take his eyes off of Halifax, who is just starting to lose the coiled pre-hatch pose he’s been stuck in. It’s one of Arthur’s favorite part of newly hatched babies. He’s heard Eames more than once explain to their son the joys of the starfish sprawl.

“Well. You only worked with the the foremost dream therapist in mindcrime. And you know, the pioneer of the technology is Mal’s  _ father. _ ” Eames is literally rolling his eyes. If he wasn’t holding Arthur’s youngest child in his arms, Arthur would punch him in the shoulder. “I figured it was only a matter of time before Hal hatched and we left for the coast.”

“But — this house?”

Eames snorts. “I didn’t plan on selling it. But before this year, it sat vacant more often than not. Besides — they’re family, to, uh, both of us. That comes first.”

Arthur sees his paths converge:  _ both? _


	18. Chapter 18

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is the end, folx.

*

It takes six months for Arthur to stop existing under a low-hanging cloud of anxious tension.

In the meantime, he says a lot of things to Mal. “You love Pascal’s wager,” he says. “It’s why you go to church on Christmas and Easter — you’re making the wrong bet, now.” “Even if you’re dreaming, it doesn’t cost you anything to stay.” “If you’re wrong, your children will grieve. As will I. And your husband.”

Dom says a lot of things to Mal. “Grow old with me. If you’re dreaming, when it’s over, we’ll get to do it again, and we can grow old together twice.”

 _Only time will prove to her the steadfastness of her own mind_ , Miles tells Arthur. _And you can’t love her to sanity, although I imagine being loved doesn’t hurt._

Arthur does his best to surprise her, frequently, with facts she doesn’t know, movies she hasn’t seen, news none of them would have imagined. 2016 is a good year for that.

Arthur and Eames rent a house an hour out of Los Angeles, close enough to bundle up Hal and pick up the other two, or spend the evening there. Miles goes back to France first, and then Marie, when they no longer worry about Mal being unsure about the world around her.

As their worry retreats, it makes room for other things in their lives. Arthur emails Eames’ friend, says, _send me what you’ve got,_ and gets a package in the mail, certified. Eames buys himself a tattoo gun and no citrus fruit or banana in the house is safe from him. Arthur hates the whir of it, but Hal seems to find it soothing.

Mal and Dom go through three weeks of separation as it lands on Mal that during their exploration into the deepest caves of subconscious space, Dom tricked her, unanchored her grip on which reality was which.

She comes home. Says, “I forgive you.” because she understands what he was thinking, inexcusable as it was. Later, she also says, _I know we have shared dreams, but some things must be sacred. If we cannot trust each other, Dominic, what can we trust?_ It is clear to the whole family that this is non-negotiable; if it happens again, there will be no reconciliation.

Dom says to Arthur, “You should go back to school. Dreamshare is going to go legal one of these days, and you should be poised to work with us.”

Arthur has the baby against his shoulder when Dom says this, and levels an immediately incredulous look over Halifax’s head. “I’m a little busy at the moment.”

Dom waves a dismissive hand before he begins ticking off a list on his fingers. “First, you’re the most capable man in the room, second, have you met our family? We worship at the altar of collective childcare. We’re practically a co-op.”

Arthur grins ruefully. While it isn’t untrue, the shared childcare has been skewed one-sided for the past few years, as first Arthur was in the Cobb’s employ, and then he had a child of his own and Mal had a crisis of reality in the same year, but sometime soon they may fall into the habit again.

Before this — he had never doubted Dom and Mal as parents. He doesn’t really doubt them now.

“You’re right, Dom,” Arthur concedes. Hal has his finger in his mouth, gumming it seriously.

“Of course I am,” Dom says, smiling. It’s tinged now, with something that looks like loss, or perhaps more accurately, like he knows he’s narrowly avoided it. Gratitude in the corners, but fear that what he has might be snatched away from him in the foreground.

Arthur knows what that feels like. He likes his messy life, boyfriend and a child of his own and two more that he considers as good as, the family he found in the Cobbs when he needed them the most, the interesting world of the unconscious that he didn’t even know existed when he was at the age where adults were asking him what he wanted to _be._  

It’s been so long since he was in school, and as much as he’s learned since then, as as prone to independent learning as he’s always been, he feels negatively charged, too many ambient electrons when he considers going back to school, like he’s missed the mark for it. Even before that, though, there’s a reason why his plan before he’d seen Dom’s ad pretty much consisted of: _take the ASVAB and cross your fingers._ Arthur doesn’t sit still well.

Nevertheless.

*

Having another child is such a unique experience. Arthur had noticed with the second, of course, that being acquainted with Phillipa hadn’t really prepared him for James, because they were both unique. He had chalked some of the differences up to gender, stupidly, and some of them to the fact that James was a baby with unique needs and volume levels.

Of course, his relationship with each child is different, and this one has all sorts of new experiences attached, being the child’s egg-parent _and_ raising him without the Cobbs. Eames, of course, is the other variable.

“Eames,” Arthur says, nudging him with his foot. “Eames.”

Eames does a full body squirm away from him. “No thanks,” he says, voice husky with sleep. Arthur almost lets him sink back into sleep, except that this is the third time tonight that he himself has climbed out of bed and his limbs are not exactly cooperating.

Arthur runs a hand from between Eames’ shoulderblades down his back in a firm stroke. “What are you saying no thanks to, exactly?”

“Darling,” Eames says, pressing his face into his own pillow. “It’s not that I don’t find you attractive, I’m just not exactly in the mood to be buggered. I need a rain check.”

Arthur had been half asleep before, despite the noise, but now his mind launches into wakefulness, suffused with nearly-instant laughter. He laughs so hard he falls off the side of the bed, dragging the comforter down with him. He laughs harder when his bony bottom hits the floor beside the bed, even though the jolt of it all.

Eames pokes his head over the edge, looking offended and finally awake, which is probably when it filters in that the baby monitor is making noises. Not a hungry scream but an insistent babble.

“Ah, fuck it,” he huffs, slipping bonelessly off the other side of the bed as Arthur composes himself, wiping a stray tear from the side of his face.

“Love you!” Arthur calls after Eames, who is tugging on a pair of boxers on the way out the door.

He does. Halifax shattered the honeymoon of new cohabitation, of course, but it was a worthwhile trade-off. Besides the fact that he _brought about_ the cohabitation, a catalyst in what was sure to be a longer and more complicated story without the surprise of family planning.

Halifax has chubby baby thighs and two wisps of dark hair and he already has Eames’ walnut forehead. Arthur is stupidly charmed like he’s been with all of the children he considers his.

This time around, he gets to wake Eames up. Between the two of them, the squirming, pouting, _delightful_  grubworm is their responsibility, and Arthur loves them both beyond measure.  

*

Eames is getting frustrated playing fetch with Hal in the grocery store when a stranger offers unsolicited advice. “They get fun around two years old,” she advises, grinning conspiratorially.

Eames is charming in return, laughing along while handing Hal back his pacifier after a quick wipe on his shirt. Arthur would have put it in his own pocket, to be sure, after the first time, but even after he starts to huff, Eames keeps returning the toy.

As soon as the woman leaves the aisle, Eames turns to Arthur, scandalized. “Can you _believe her?_ ” he says, in sharp whisper. “How dare she. My son is fun _now,_ look at him, he’s _brilliant._ ”

Arthur tries not to laugh out loud. “You f-u-c-k-i-n-g hypocrite,” he grins, censoring himself like he always does in front of the children. He’s trying to cut down on that now, too, because Pip is starting to spell out simple words. “You just asked me a few days ago when he was going to start saying fun things and —” he makes air quotes to clarify that he thinks it was a ridiculous thing to say: “ _thinking thoughts._ ”

“Yes, but I didn’t mean nothing is fun about him now, I just wanted to know when the questions and miscommunications are coming. I’m going to start a twitter.”

“S-h-i-t my baby says?” Arthur teases.

“No, love, that one’s already taken. Try to have some imagination,” Eames says. Hal is looking up at him with wide, dark eyes, his mobile mouth somber around his pacifier before he very deliberately leans forward and pushes it out to the floor.

“Enough,” Arthur says, stooping to pocket the grimy thing instead of letting them engage anymore in this ridiculously grimy game with things Hal puts _in his mouth_. Both of them look at him, horrified, as if he’s cancelled Christmas.

*

When Pippa was two years old, a movie called Little Beetles came out. It wasn’t high-budget CGI. It looks clumsy, like the kind of animation it is now cost effective to use in daily kid’s programming.

Nevertheless, it somehow wormed its way into Pippa’s toddler heart, and she still holds it dear. The main character, Oliver Little, who happens to be a beetle, is a brave insect in search of his parents. Arthur can admit that for what it is, it’s pretty cute. He knows most of the words.

By the time Halifax is eight months old, Eames has unwittingly seen it dozens of times, and is much less charmed by it than Pippa and Arthur. Pippa, who was five by then, likes to insist that it is also Hal’s favorite movie. Eames is less sure. All of Eames’ favorite children’s movies are live action films about boys and their dogs.

Infuriatingly, Eames’ sign language is better than Arthur’s. Arthur doesn’t mind conceding if someone has worked harder at something than he has, but it drives him nuts that he never even sees him practice and yet they’ll be sitting in their class and Arthur will look at him sideways until Eames says out of the corner of his mouth, “it’s like dancing.”

Which, no it fucking is not because you can’t just _improvise sign language._ Arthur does not say this to Eames because he understands that ASL classes are a time to rest one’s voice, and also because he isn’t half as good as Eames is of being a subtle whisperer.

Whatever. Arthur practices his baby sign with Halifax all the time, because if James is going to be a Deaf or HOH adult he wants his siblings and cousin (that’s what they’ve decided to call Halifax in relation to the Cobb children) to be able to access his world.

*

The first time Eames hears what Phillipa calls herself, he calls Arthur.

“So. I just heard your child — ” because that’s how they refer to all of them, the whole fucking co-op of a family, “ — call herself the _baby boss_.”

Arthur pins the phone between his shoulder and his face. “That’s pretty much what she thinks of as her job title.”

“I told her that today _I_ am the baby boss and she looked at me like I was barking, but didn’t correct me. Arthur she was fucking _humoring me._ With a look at the clearly learned from you.”

Arthur has James at the time, taking him for a new hearing aid fitting. He makes the sign he uses for _Eames_ and gestures at the phone for his benefit. “Well. You can correct her about how you are in charge, or you can utilize that energy productively and get her to entertain Hal while you read _Us Weekly._ ”

Arthur hears Eames still on the other line and barks out a laugh. “You can’t fool me by not turning a page for five seconds.”

“Screw editing,” Eames grumbles. “You should be a PI.”

“I kind of was,” Arthur says, casually adjusting James on his hip. “Haven’t ruled out going back.”

*

“Three children is too much to bring along for a job.”

“Is it, though?”

“ _Yes_ ,” Arthur insists.

All three of their children are asleep in the playroom. When Eames and Arthur go home for the evening, they will rearrange Halifax into the car. For now, the four of them are sprawled across the den. There is a small toy digging into Arthur’s lower back, buried in the couch cushions.

“We do outnumber them,” Mal points out.

“We have two infants and a precocious five year old,” Arthur says. “It complicates the math a bit.”

“So, do we stop working together and take shifts?” Eames asks, looking dubiously at the Cobbs. He would, Arthur knows, be perfectly happy working, just the two of them. Although in the months since signing their California lease he has grown closer to the Cobb/Callahan children, he still considers the adult Cobbs to be more-or-less “in laws,” his friendship with Mal notwithstanding.

“That’s one idea,” Mal says. She still teaches at the college, but Dom has taken a sabbatical, ostensibly to publish but mostly because he had wanted the children to have something stable in their lives.

“Then again, when we stick to reparative dreamwork and fewer extractions, you know it’s relatively low-risk. We could just put the kids in daycare,” Dom muses.

“Pip only does a half-day, and the babies are too young to be in daycare.”

“Plenty of infants survive day care, Arthur. I suspect that is why there is infant pricing on the brochures.” Eames says, but he doesn’t sound convinced.

“We’re not putting Hal in daycare. _Or_ James.” Arthur says, with a shudder. “Not until they’re verbal. We’d have to find one of those ones with two way glass or a nanny cam and I’d have to sit in front of it all day. Not a productive use of our time.”

“So… shifts, and local therapy dreamwork. Is that where we’re landing?” Dom says. Pippa flops over in her sleep, her head flopping off of the stuffed rabbit she’d been using as a pillow, soft and flat with age. Dom maneuvers her back on.

Eames snorts. “Fuck off, mate.”

“I’m putting Eames down as a no for that one,” Arthur says, wryly. Then again, they're not a four headed beast. “But that is what I'd recommend for the two of you.”

As for he and Eames, they can burn that bridge when they come to it.

*

Dom is certain of the coming legality of dreamshare. Arthur is not in the habit of doubting him. He’s not wrong about Arthur wanting to have qualifications in place when that happens.

Although it is tempting to let Eames have his way and create for Arthur a set of flawless documents to cover his ass, but half of Arthur is always aware of the fact that he’s completely unschooled, that his life went off course when he realized he didn’t exactly have the financial backing to go to school.

He’d stumbled across the Cobb’s ad when he was looking for jobs after high school, and he hadn’t looked back since.

Now, though, with Hal moving out of his fussy infancy to an age where he’s starting to be reasonable, Arthur’s options are broadening. He’s been doing a lot of freelance editing, spending plenty of nights tapping away with an open CMOS at his elbow, Hal gurgling happily from the floor. Eames, similarly, has been doing a lot of physical forgery and very little theft, but they hardly consider themselves retired.

It’s only a matter of time until there’s something intriguing enough, tempting enough that the two of them are ready to jump back in.

*

Their ten month lease comes to an end about three weeks after they celebrate Halifax’s first birthday, with a smash cake and Tiramisu for the adults who didn’t plan on flattening their slices with the meat of their own fists.

Eames and Arthur celebrate their last night in their rental by leaving Hal with the Cobbs, and Arthur gets to take his time winding Eames up, massaging with firm fingers into the line of his shoulders, down the broad geometry of his back, the backs of his thighs; Arthur has him hard before his touch ever turns sexual.

It is a joyful coupling, a celebration of the year they’ve spent in this house and their impending move. It is bittersweet for both of them, Arthur especially, but Arthur knows that family is flexible, that family ties stretch and do not snap unless someone involved wants them to.

He brought Eames to see his mother when Hal hatched and Eames hadn’t known what to say, so he let Arthur speak, kept his hand at the small of his back.

Arthur has never let anyone cross into this room with him. He feels cracked open. His voice snags when he says, quiet. “Eames, this is my mom.”

Did Eames have expectations, suspicions? Arthur should have told him instead of dragging him into the situation blind, but it’s hard for him to articulate, _Eames my mother is in a persistent vegetative state after a brief period where she was put into a medically induced coma to control the pressure dynamics in her brain after a car accident during my last year of high school._ His throat feels dry at the thought of explaining. Eames will have to pry open his brain. Maybe one day Arthur will take him down.

If he built his childhood home in a dream, he is sure she would be there, younger and vibrant, but lacking anything more nuanced than a seventeen year old’s understanding of his mother. He doesn't want a clumsy invented version of her.

It was easier to explain, “This is the other reason I stayed in California,” after he tells his mother about Hal, and Eames. “But we don’t have to stay.”

“Could she come with us,” he asked, tentative like he's not sure if she can be moved. It's never seemed like a good idea before, with no real reason to move her. Arthur shrugged.

Eames gripped his mother’s limp hand, brings it up to his mouth to kiss, and greeted her so kindly that if Arthur hadn’t conquered the urge to cry when he was a teenager, he would have let out the low sob that he felt briefly in his chest.

Arthur is getting lost in thought, maudlin. Back in the present, Eames is staring up at him, mouth slightly open. Arthur can see the traffic jam of his bottom teeth. “You still with me, Arthur?”

“Yes,” he says, leaning down to press his face to Eames’ chest. “Sorry.”

Eames fingers fly through Arthur’s hair. “Lost the thread, love?”

Arthur breathes deeply, the calming scent of Eames, who smells like their child, or the other way around.

“I can have a wank if you’re not in the mood,” Eames says, brushing Arthur’s sweaty hair off his face.

“No,” Arthur says, “we’ve got an empty house for the first time in who knows how long. We’re not going to waste it.”

But he doesn’t jump right back into action. Eames is quiet beneath him, sturdy and under his spread thighs and Arthur is just glad that he has something to grip when he feels overwhelmed, adrift. Eames keeps his hands on him, tracing a careful path down his body, trousers but no shirt, until Arthur smiles into his neck.

“Alright,” he says, and it works like some kind of secret signal. Eames springs to life beneath him, in vivid color.

*

Back in Maryland, they have decisions to make. “You’re in the prime of your life, Arthur,” Eames says. “Even if I collapse of old age, you’ll keep the sprout for another twenty years.”

“We’re criminals,” Arthur says. “Anything could happen.”

Eames snorts. “Hardly. We practically make a wage. You never let us do anything fun.”

“You hotwired a car,” Arthur points out, thumbing his phone awake and glancing at the calendar. “Two weeks ago.”

“But no one was _shooting_ at me,” Eames says.

“Don’t you dare sound fucking wistful,” Arthur bites out. “And anyways, you can’t just avoid getting your affairs in order because we’re not taking dangerous jobs right now.” He doesn’t point out that his father had hardly been in a dangerous line of work. Eames himself has a mother who by all reports seemed fine until she an aneurysm that took her out of commission.

Eames makes a gesture that looks like _go on,_ amused and indulgent _._ Like he’s fucking humoring Arthur.

Arthur moves to pin him, getting his into an armbar. “Hey asshole, I’m going to need you to get invested here because we’ve got a child and we have to decide what to _do_ about him if I drop dead.”

“You have my attention,” Eames says, his face in the carpet. Arthur is perched on his back. With the hand that isn’t holding Eames’ behind his back, he combs his own hair back into some semblance of order.

“Good. Now. In the case of my untimely death...” Arthur says.

“Are you saying that I am not also dead in this brave new world you’ve just imagined?” Eames asks.

“Yes. We have to go through all the scenarios.”

“Well. I imagine that’s me, seeing as he’s my son and all.”

“It’s too early in the list for you to get pissy with me, Eames,” Arthur says, unhurried. “And obviously the opposite is true. But what happens if we both die?”

“I’ve got a great aunt,” Eames muses. The fact that he hasn’t struggled to get himself out from under Arthur is a testament to the fact that he wants Arthur to know that he has his attention. Arthur stiffens above him. “Oh, not my father’s aunt, if that’s what just occurred to you.”

“You can't believe serious.”

“Maybe we could leave them to the Cobb’s neighbors,” Eames muses. “I wouldn't want to deprive him of their company, but do we really want to leave our _only child_ on their doorstep? Think of how well adjusted little Harry would be if he'd been left with Mrs. Figg.”

Arthur has to let Eames up just then to he can witness the full horror on his face. “They're not going to make him live under the stairs, Eames, what the hell!”

“I didn't say that.”

“I don't have a great aunt.”

“No one was fooled, Eames.”

“So we leave Halifax and his brother an unconscionable amount of money and survive until Pippa turns eighteen.”

Arthur ticks off fingers. “Halifax is an only child and you trust a six year old more than the Cobbs.”

“Not … right now. And I was speaking in the hypothetical.”

“If you want a second child,” Arthur says primly, “you’re going to have to hatch it yourself. And if you don’t have an actual, viable alternative to the Cobbs, we’re going to have to stop doing … crime until Halifax is, you know, driving age.”

“Ten years is a long time,” Eames says.

Arthur squints at his infant son, dozing in Pack and Play. “I know maths aren’t your strong suit...”

“Don’t be absurd,” Eames says, rolling his eyes. “That’s old enough for the critical thinking to kick in and he can live wherever. You can’t ruin a lad who’s already eleven.”

“Your parenting ideas are completely bizarre,” Arthur mutters.

“We could hire a part time nanny,” Eames says. “We could get our own Arthur, and then, you know, when she is past the point of swearing fealty, she’ll be the obvious choice.”

“Be serious,” Arthur says, and climbs back on top of Eames. He’s on his back now, so it’s is easier to climb on top of him. “That is not a viable option.”

Eames sighs. “Fine. If we both end up in the same cold ditch, he can go live with the bloody Cobbs.”

“Plan A,” Arthur says, just to clarify, “is ending up in ditches at completely different times, or not at all.”

Eames nods solemnly.

*

Arthur catches sight of him in Eames’ head. It isn’t that he looks like Eames, because he doesn’t, really. There’s something about him, though, that makes Arthur suspicious, even before Eames notices him and flushes.

“Don’t pay attention to him,” Eames mutters. “I don’t need him coming over here.”

“I could kill him,” Arthur says. “Does it make you feel better when you do?”

“Haven’t tried it,” Eames grunts, putting his shoulder against the door frame. They’re practicing in Eames’ head, trying out a build, and they have enough leeway for Eames to break down the door. “I’m fucked enough in the head without weird guilt about a patricide that didn’t actually happen. You’re welcome to try, though.”

The man across the street is looking at them now. There’s something familiar in his gaze, but he is otherwise unremarkable. Slighter than Eames, a taller, maybe. When Arthur was in Tony’s head, years ago now, he remembers the exaggerated height of his father. Arthur levels his pistol at him, and Eames, beside him, tenses.

Oh.

Arthur puts his gun down. “Let’s just,” he says, voice catching.

“Alright,” Eames says. “Let’s.”

He crashes through the doorway.

When they're safe, awake and prone, plugged into Eames’ PASIV, Arthur presses cotton to Eames’ wrist as he pulls out the needle, presses it with one hand as puts disposes of the tip and removes the tubing to flush.

“I wanted to shoot him,” Arthur confesses.

When Eames speaks, his mouth clicks open, and his voice sounds scraped raw: “the feeling is familiar.”

Arthur keeps his fingers at Eames elbow, two on the bandage and his thumb stroking the soft skin at the juncture. “I’m glad I’ve seen his face.”

Arthur pauses, his tongue between his teeth. They keep small bandages tucked in the case of the PASIV for this moment, but the last box Arthur bought was Monster’s Inc, for the baby. He smiles to himself as he puts one on the soft spot there. He seals it with a kiss.

Eames has a button down draped over a high-backed stool at the kitchen bar and buttons it over his bare chest. “I’m going to go get the baby,” he says. They’d left him with the neighbor three houses down, a single mom who has needed the favor returned once before for a job interview. Arthur has a feeling Eames indicated that he and his _husband_ needed some quality alone time. Arthur’s going to have a hard time making eye contact with her later.

When Eames returns, he comes back with a lolling child. “She asked if I wanted to come back when his nap was over, but I told her I’m getting pretty good at picking him up without waking him.”

Arthur smiles behind his hand. “A life of crime has equipped you to do many things.”

Eames smiles back at him, lowering Halifax down as lightly as he can in the swing. Their son is addicted to his swing, and it keeps him asleep like nothing else. Eames puts him on the lowest rocking setting and hovers long enough to make sure it doesn’t wake him.

Arthur has finishes cleaning and stowing the PASIV by now, and he moves to the couch, where Eames follows him, both of them watching their child, the only sound in the room the rhythmic shush of the chair, rocking back and forth.

“Don’t kill him if you see him in the streets,” Eames says, apparently still thinking about their earlier conversation.  

“Of course — ” Arthur says, but Halifax interrupts him, making a startled wail. Eames is on his feet nearly immediately, moving towards him, reaching for him before he’s even in range to telegraph his movements. He’s — he’s a good father, taken to it even when he’d had no blueprint.

Arthur had one, earlier; not for his whole life, but enough to learn a thing or two. He’ll be on his own by the time Hal is nine. They’re both fatherless men, now, doing the best they can. Eames doesn’t waste any time coming back with the baby and sitting beside Arthur, side by side.

He did not acquire and his family through bloodshed; he cultivated it with the heat of his own body, the warmth of his heart, and Eames’. Eames, who had wanted to leave his mark on Halifax before they'd even sorted the details of what was to come next, tangibly in a way that left no doubt about who his other father was, in jewel tones and nontoxic paint. Arthur's heart beats unevenly at the thought. “We do what we have to to keep ours safe, but no vengeance,” he promises.

Arthur nestles down beside Eames, curling around him and their child like a closed parent-parenthetical. He smiles into Eames’ neck. “No vengeance,” Eames repeats, sounding like he’s found something. It sounds like — like a house rule. The first of many.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay y'all, so this is the end of the road. Also this chapter 100 percent belongs to sevenimpossiblethings who has loved this fic so well, and for Kedgeree who she commissioned to make this amazing, lovely art of Arthur and Eames cuddling a pre-hatch Hal. My heart, you guys. For everyone who loved me though this fic, when I didn't think I was going to wrap it up, ever. I love this universe and everyone who supported it. I hope that this feels right, the place that I've left you, and where I've left all three of our boys, but I know the feeling when you're not. So, hey, if you're not happy, if there's something else you need to know, come find me on tumblr at katiewont, and I'll tell you anything you need to know. 
> 
> Thank you for taking this journey with me.


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